The Communication Method of Devas Proves That the Manas Has the Mental Factor of Mindfulness

Devas in the desire realm communicate with one another not through human language, writing, and sounds, but entirely through mental thoughts, because they all possess the power of knowing others' minds (para-citta-abhijñā) and can quickly comprehend the intentions of others. When a deva's mental thought arises, with a "zzzt" sound it is transmitted extremely rapidly, accompanied by facial expressions; there is no need to speak—the mouth is useless. At the moment of expression, a strong surge of electromagnetic waves arises; the other party hears the sound of the electromagnetic waves and sees the facial expressions, and immediately knows the other's intentions and thoughts. As soon as a thought stirs, the electromagnetic waves surge, energy is released, and the signal is received by the other party. The electromagnetic wave energy is emitted by the manas; it is the manas having a mental thought or intention, which is equivalent to a human speaking. The mind consciousness has no energy waves and cannot mobilize the flow of energy within the body.

When a deva receives the electromagnetic waves and comprehends the other's intentions and thoughts, it is first received and comprehended by the manas, and then comprehended by the mind consciousness. Devas communicate with one another by emitting and receiving electromagnetic waves; sentient beings with the power of knowing others' minds, including devas of the form realm and the formless realm, as well as all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, also communicate and exchange ideas with one another in this way, without using the language and writing functions of the mind consciousness. When many devas gather together to discuss matters, they all use mental thoughts, watching each other's gazes and facial expressions, and they respond to one another in the same way; there is no sound of speech, nor do they write or express themselves in written form. Therefore, they have no literary works, no books, and no need to study the arts and rules of language and writing; they do not have the troubles and vanities of the human world.

In a single thought-moment, the manas can rapidly express all of its thoughts, and the content can be very rich; the mind consciousness might not express it clearly even in a lengthy discourse. One can see that communicating through the manas saves a great deal of time and energy. A person of great wisdom who wants to express his own ideas and conceptions often feels great distress, because within the manas's mind the crystallization of wisdom flows swiftly and continuously—vast, profound, and rich in content. He wants to publish it so that others can understand and learn from it, but it is very laborious; sometimes it requires painstaking effort and meticulous conception, as well as choosing words and constructing sentences, weighing phrases and diction, arranging the linguistic structure, and pondering the methods and manner of expression—consuming much mental effort and energy, and it is also very slow.

If a chip could be implanted in the human brain to promptly and rapidly convert the thoughts and lines of thinking in the brain's manas into text, it would be a tremendous brain revolution, and the results would be astonishing. Scientific giants with creativity would be the greatest beneficiaries; their wisdom could be output continuously, benefiting human society. Then would anyone still foolishly believe that the thoughts, ideas, and wisdom in the brain belong to the mind consciousness? The wisdom of the mind consciousness could be directly expressed through language, writing, and sound, without such great ado.

The wiser a person is, the more he uses the manas and the less he uses the mind consciousness; the higher the level of a sentient being, the more the manas is used and the less the mind consciousness is used. Even up to an eighth-ground bodhisattva, the manas can directly substitute for the six consciousnesses, and the mind consciousness can be dispensed with. All Buddhas and Bodhisattvas directly employ the manas; the six consciousnesses are simplified as much as possible—the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna) can still be used a bit, but the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) is almost never used, because the wisdom of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is direct perception, and they have no need for the solitary consciousness's deliberation, analysis, inference, and judgment.

Since higher life forms all communicate through the manas, what do the written words, language, and sounds used by the human mind consciousness amount to? They are merely auxiliary tools, dispensable, not so important. Yet humans themselves attach great importance to written words, language, and sounds—various linguistic arts, expressive techniques, the use and piling up of words and phrases, voice training, and so on—treating these products of the mind consciousness as survival skills, not knowing that once one goes to other realms of existence, these skills will have no place to be used. Not only do beings of the deva realm rely heavily on the manas, but beings of the three evil paths also mainly depend on the manas to communicate and express their intentions; only humans use language and writing, beating around the bush.

Therefore, the functions of the manas are very powerful: it has the mental factor of determination (adhimokṣa), as well as the mental factor of desire (chanda); it has its own ideas, the desire to express and communicate, and the desire for enjoyment. Thus the manas possesses the five object-specific mental factors (pañca-viśeṣaṇa-caitta), not just a single weak and pitiable mental factor of wisdom (prajñā) as claimed by ancient Consciousness-only doctrine. If the manas had only one weak mental factor of wisdom, what could it accomplish? It could accomplish almost nothing, let alone study Buddhism and cultivate practice. Without the desire and idea to study Buddhism, without the mental thought of cultivation, there would be no motivation to study Buddhism, and one could not comprehend the Buddha-dharma with determination; the Buddha-dharma would not enter the mind—how could there be the wisdom of seeing the Path? Would studying Buddhism not amount to accomplishing nothing at all?