The Wondrous Realm of Skillfully Using the Manas

I have a disciple who learned how to use the manas. Whenever he encounters a problem, wisdom gushes forth like a spring, and solutions to problems emerge one after another. As the solutions appear, he has no choice but to go solve the problems immediately, implementing one plan after another, resulting in working day and night without a moment's rest, until his body could no longer bear it. This is because once wisdom emerges, if the thoughts in the mind are not put into practice, those ideas may be forgotten afterward, which would be a great pity. After solving one problem, his thinking broadens, another idea appears, and he must again put that idea into practice to solve another problem. In this way, he is forced to work continuously and has become a workaholic. Although his work efficiency has increased severalfold, even many times over, his body cannot sustain it.

I gave him this suggestion: from now on, whenever sparks of gushing thought and wisdom appear, immediately record them on your phone; just use concise, to-the-point language, or even just a few keywords. Because these ideas arise from your own mind (the mind of the manas), when you open the record later and let the mind consciousness browse through it, you will recall the general content, the line of thinking will reappear, and the resource of wisdom will not be wasted.

There is another disciple who, after studying the Dharma with me a few years ago, went abroad to study and work. In only fifteen months, he completed nearly five years' worth of work and study tasks, and signed a ten-year contract. All of this benefited from his use of the manas, so that his wisdom in handling problems grew rapidly, and he exceeded his work and study targets. It is evident that the potential of the manas is enormous; the only fear is that the mind consciousness and physical stamina cannot keep up, and the body cannot sustain the pace.

I teach the Dharma using this very method. For a given piece of Dharma meaning, as long as the mind settles down and becomes immersed in it, all kinds of ideas and thoughts keep pouring out. Sometimes my body is fatigued and the mind consciousness cannot keep up, so there is no way to record all the lines of thought in writing. Forming all the thoughts in the mind into written words also consumes a great deal of vital energy and blood, and for me, vital energy and blood are precious resources that must be used sparingly. So I have no choice but to record only fragments, or only keywords, and when I open and read them later, the lines of thought reappear. But because there are too many recorded fragments, I simply have no time to organize them, while new thoughts and ideas keep emerging; the old records have been piling up for years without the energy to process them. Therefore I can no longer respond to the questions of each and every disciple; otherwise it would be endless, and no piece of Dharma could ever be written up and published.

If you know how to use the manas, there truly is inexhaustible wisdom. The manas—He never rests, while the energy of the mind consciousness falls far behind. Words and language cannot keep pace with the thoughts of the manas, and wisdom cannot be formed into written words, which is also a great pity. Such is the case of a quick and brilliant mind: it is no problem for one's own benefit, but there are obstacles when it comes to benefiting others. Yet this is still far, far better than having a quick mind consciousness while the manas lacks wisdom. When the mind consciousness is quick and glib, one can talk eloquently and spectacularly, but the reality may be quite otherwise.

It is thus evident that the mind consciousness and the manas are not necessarily in harmony. There are things we can sometimes manage to do, yet even though we can do them, we cannot summarize and generalize them; if we must express them in spoken or written language, it becomes extremely difficult, or we lack the time and energy to put them into words. For example, the great arhat Cūḍapanthaka: his manas had extremely high realization and virtue of realization, yet he was unable to express these in language and writing so as to benefit sentient beings—this is a deficiency of the wisdom of the mind consciousness. The manas accomplished everything, but the mind consciousness could not explain it clearly or express it—able to do but unable to say. Some people are just the opposite: the mind consciousness talks spectacularly, while the manas cannot move a single step—able to say but unable to do. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, owing to their long work of guiding sentient beings, can both do and say; their manas and mind consciousness work in concert, mastering not only the essential truth (zong) but also the doctrinal teachings (jiao). Zong is the wisdom of the manas, and jiao is the wisdom of the mind consciousness; both kinds of wisdom are profound.

Viewed from the realms of wisdom derived from the manas, once the wisdom of the manas is opened up and fully activated, it is by no means inferior or weak; on the contrary, it is exceedingly vigorous, while the wisdom of the mind consciousness appears somewhat inferior and weak, unable to keep up with the rhythm of the manas. Language and words cannot describe the samādhi realms of the manas, and often one cannot even understand the realms of the manas. Moreover, as cultivation deepens, the wisdom of the manas grows ever deeper, until finally it is so deep that it completely replaces the functions and roles of the six consciousnesses, extinguishing the six consciousnesses and no longer using them, with the one carrying the functions of all seven. How powerful must such functional wisdom be—so powerful that the mind consciousness can no longer even be called inferior or weak. For those from ancient times to the present who claim that the wisdom of the manas is inferior, upon seeing such facts, what thoughts do they have? Do they still remain obstinately deluded, stubbornly clinging to incomplete theories contrived by the mind consciousness? In what follows, I will use the realms of realization attained by the various noble ones to shatter these deluded and incomplete ideas and views.