The Powerful Decisive Nature of the Manas

The deliberation mental factor (cetanā) of the manas is extremely powerful; He takes charge of and makes decisions regarding all dharmas. On every dharma He has a deliberative nature, always weighing and balancing, and His functions of taking charge and making decisions are so powerful that no other consciousness can substitute for Him. When the manas, through the mind consciousness, comes into contact with the Buddha-dharma and is deeply steeped in it, then thought after thought becomes the Buddha-dharma, cultivating a habit of practice and forming a habitual tendency toward cultivation. Thus, even while asleep, He continues deliberating; because He cannot deliberate on content that is too fine and specific, dreams are produced, in which the mind consciousness is brought in to participate. After the manas has been steeped in the Buddha-dharma, He may abandon certain worldly dharmas, considering them unimportant, or judging that they are not in accordance with the Dharma and should be discarded; thus He no longer deliberates on or discerns unimportant dharmas. Consequently, in dreams, apart from the Buddha-dharma that He values, no other matters will appear.

The forgetting and remembering of the mind consciousness arise precisely because of the manas's selectivity. Matters that the manas considers important, He continuously grasps at and keeps in mind; matters that the manas considers unimportant or bad, He no longer grasps at or keeps in mind. When faculty and object do not contact each other, the mind consciousness does not arise, and thus does not discern matters in which the manas has no interest; whereas matters in which the manas is interested and considers important can be recalled and remembered. This is the principle of remembering and forgetting. Therefore, of all the dharmas discerned by the mind consciousness, there is not one that has not been grasped at and discerned by the manas, and not one that has not been brought forth by the manas's mindfulness. If the manas does not mind it and does not propel it, the mind consciousness will not arise and will not discern. After the manas first discerns a mental sense-object (dharma-viṣaya), if He is not interested, the mind consciousness cannot arise, and thus that mental sense-object is not known; dreams concerning that matter certainly cannot appear either.

The More Wisdom the Manas Has, the More Correct His Deliberations and Decisions Become

When the manas discerns the specific states of the six sense objects, His wisdom is relatively inferior; He cannot discern what the six sense objects specifically are, nor does He know good or bad, beautiful or ugly, coarse or fine, high or low, large or small, because His grasping is too broad and His energy is insufficient; therefore His discernment is unclear and not detailed. However, the manas Himself also has a deliberative nature and the mental factor of perception (saṃjñā), and His deliberative and discerning functions are also very powerful. Relying on His deliberative nature, He can make decisions regarding all dharmas, and these deliberations and decisions occur moment by moment, not a single dharma passing by in vain. For beginningless kalpas, when the manas has deliberated correctly and made correct decisions about many people, affairs, objects, and principles, countless errors and disasters have been avoided—His merit in this is indispensable.

Many people, especially those with wisdom, have times when the manas's decisions are correct and without error, and some people also display very high wisdom; these manifestations of wisdom are all the result of the manas's correct deliberation and decision-making. If the manas could not deliberate and decide correctly, and every decision were erroneous and inferior, then every sentient being would be foolish and without wisdom, would be unable to attain wisdom in the future, and would even be unable to transform consciousness into wisdom. In fact, whether in worldly dharmas or in the cultivation of the Buddha-dharma, there are indeed many people who possess wisdom, which shows that the deliberations and decisions made by their manas are correct, error-free, and wise. Especially after afflictions have been eradicated and consciousness has been transformed into wisdom, the wise deliberations and decisions of the manas become even more inconceivable.