The Powerful Decisive Capacity of the Manas

The deliberation mental factor (cetanā) of the manas is extremely powerful; He takes charge of and makes decisions regarding all dharmas, deliberating upon every dharma and weighing them all. His functions of taking charge and making decisions are very strong, and no 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 every thought and every moment is the Buddha-dharma, cultivating the habit of practice and forming an inclination toward practice. Thus, even while asleep, He continues deliberating; because He cannot deliberate on content that is too fine and specific, He produces dream states, letting the mind consciousness participate together in the dream. After the manas has been steeped in the Buddha-dharma, He may abandon certain worldly dharmas, considering them unimportant, or considering them contrary to the Dharma and thus to be discarded; He then no longer deliberates upon 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 the manas deems important, He constantly grasps at and keeps in mind; matters the manas deems unimportant or bad, He no longer grasps at or keeps in mind. When faculty and object do not make contact, 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 deems 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 mindfully attend and impel, the mind consciousness will not arise and will not discern. After the manas first discerns a mental sense-object, if He is not interested, the mind consciousness cannot arise, and thus that mental sense-object is not known; dreams concerning that matter likewise cannot appear.

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 insufficient, His discernment is unclear and not detailed. However, the manas Himself also possesses the nature of deliberation and has the mental factor of perception (saṃjñā); His deliberative and discerning functions are also very powerful. Relying on His deliberative nature, He can make decisions regarding all dharmas, and this deliberation and decision-making occurs moment by moment, not letting a single dharma pass by in vain. Since beginningless kalpas, when the manas has deliberated correctly and made correct decisions regarding many people, matters, objects, and principles, countless errors and disasters have been avoided—His merit in this is immeasurable.

Many people, especially the wise, have times when the manas's decisions are correct and without error; some people also display very high wisdom, and 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 affairs or in the practice 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 eliminated and consciousness has been transformed into wisdom, the manas's wise deliberation and decision-making become even more inconceivable.