The mental factors (caittas) of the sixth consciousness differ among sentient beings

The mental factors of the mind consciousness are, on the one hand, influenced and perfumed by the mental factors of the manas, and on the other hand, transformed through being perfumed by the environment. At birth, the mental factors of the mind consciousness are entirely influenced and directed by the manas, having no autonomy whatsoever. As one gradually grows up, one is increasingly perfumed by the surrounding environment—such as parents, relatives, playmates, school education, television, the internet, and so on. In this way, a child who is innately kind may gradually pick up bad habits, or a child born with bad habits may gradually become well-behaved; this is the effect of environmental perfuming. If a child is born with very heavy innate habits of both good and evil, it is not easy for the environment to perfume them: a good child remains a good child and will not turn bad; a bad child remains a bad child and will not turn good. In such a case, the force of the manas appears quite strong. On yet another front, the mental factors of the mind consciousness can in turn influence and perfume the manas; once the manas has been perfumed, the karmic seeds change, the karmic force is turned around, and the retributive results undergo transformation.

The mind consciousness of ordinary beings corresponds to fifty-one mental factors, but not everyone's sixth consciousness fully possesses all fifty-one. Some mental factors do not manifest, while others manifest when their causes and conditions are complete. In some people, the afflictive mental factors manifest more, and the wholesome mental factors manifest less. A person whose afflictive mental factors are fully present and manifesting has extremely heavy afflictions, and the quality of their character is quite vile.

The mental factors of sentient beings' sixth consciousness number at most fifty-one, and may be fewer than fifty-one. When they are reduced to only twenty-one, this is a bodhisattva of the eighth bhūmi or above; when the twenty-one mental factors are completely and fully possessed, one has completely transformed consciousness into wisdom and become a Buddha. Thus sentient beings each differ in their mental factors, and their emphases also differ. In particular, the sixth consciousness mental factors of non-Buddhist ordinary beings who possess the four dhyānas and eight samādhis are markedly fewer than fifty-one. For bodhisattvas of the three stages of wisdom (śaikṣa stages) before passing the final barrier, and for stream-enterers and once-returners, the mental factors must be reduced—chiefly, the fundamental affliction of self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) is gone, and the universal afflictions are also reduced and lightened. For an arhat (the fourth fruit), all the fundamental afflictive mental factors have been extinguished, and both the universal and middling afflictions have been extinguished; the minor afflictions still exist, only lightened. For a non-returner, among the fundamental afflictions, pride and delusion have not yet been extinguished, but are markedly much lightened; the universal and middling afflictions have been extinguished, the minor afflictions still remain, and their habitual tendencies are heavier than those of an arhat.

For bodhisattvas who have passed the final barrier and post-bhūmi bodhisattvas, the mental factors are roughly the same as those of Small Vehicle practitioners of the third and fourth fruits. The only difference is that for post-bhūmi bodhisattvas, the minor afflictions gradually lighten and diminish beginning from the first bhūmi, and are all extinguished before entering the eighth bhūmi. If the manas has no afflictions or habitual tendencies, the mind consciousness has even less. For bodhisattvas after the eighth bhūmi, the mental factors of the sixth consciousness initially correspond to the twenty-one mental factors—the five universal factors, the five particular factors, and the eleven wholesome factors—but not completely; only at the Buddha stage can they be fully possessed.