Dharmas That Emerge from the Samādhi State Are All Mentally Generated by the Manas (2024-09-24)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: I remember that during the first two years at my daughter's home, I could not do anything well. I was afraid of going out to do things, afraid of making mistakes, and afraid of contact with people. Generally I did not go out; whenever something came up, I had to force myself to go out and handle it. Sometimes when there were certain feelings in body and mind, I did not take them to heart; I just felt that all states were false and unreal. Several times I clearly felt that my body seemed beyond my control, empty and illusory. No matter what I did, my mind just could not react, and I kept making mistakes in whatever I did.

Once my daughter asked me to hold the baby. At that time I could not feel the existence of my body. When I tried to muster my spirit to do the task, the more I feared making mistakes, the more mistakes I made. When I put the child down on the small bed, I suddenly froze and stared blankly, unable to feel my body or my sense of direction. Just then my son-in-law saw the child crawling alone on the bed and rushed over, picked the child up, and said that this could have caused an accident. Only then did I come back to myself. In a moment of carelessness my mind had gone blank, and I had lost the feeling of my body. Now for a long time I have not been studying the Dharma teachings; I have simply been contemplating the familiar contemplation of the white bones and impurity that appears in my mind. Even when I do not think about these teachings, they linger and cannot be dispelled—just like the sound of the Buddha's name in my mind, which plays whether I want it to or not; the presentation of the Dharma teachings is like that too.

For example, a few days ago, there was some troubling matter back in my hometown and someone told me about it. I did not reply and did not take it to heart. Sometimes even in my dreams I was pondering the Buddha-dharma, and then I would wake up. Upon waking, my mouth kept repeating "know the illusion, leave the illusion" (知幻离幻). After I became fully awake, I felt a bit puzzled—how did this phrase pop out? Before I had time to think about what was going on, the three words "the eight consciousnesses" (八个识) jumped out next. I did not understand what that meant either. I could understand "know the illusion, leave the illusion" a little, but what "the eight consciousnesses" meant stumped me. The more I tried to let go and ignore it, the more it lingered and would not go away. Because my manas lacks the wisdom of direct perception, I could not express it.

Assessment: Within a state of meditative absorption (samādhi), whatever dharma pops up in the mind is a thought or ideation of the manas. If the Buddha-dharma pops up, it shows that the manas is investigating these dharmas. Perhaps it has understood them, perhaps not; whatever it has not understood, it will pass along to the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta), letting the solitary consciousness and the manas investigate it together. Once the investigation is understood, both the mind consciousness and the manas have clarity regarding that dharma. This is also the process and principle by which any dharma is realized.

Expressing things through language and words is the function of the mind consciousness, not the wisdom of the manas's direct perception. If the mind consciousness has not studied well, if knowledge is insufficient and the foundation in language and writing is poor, then expression will be unclear and one will not be able to explain things. One needs the mind consciousness to keep learning the relevant knowledge; only after mastering this knowledge will the foundation in language and writing be complete, and expression will then flow smoothly so that everyone can understand by listening and reading. These are the qualities and skills that a great bodhisattva should possess—indispensable for one's own survival and for delivering sentient beings.