What is innate is the experience of the manas

Changing the manas—perhaps a single major accident is enough to make the manas vastly different from before. If you don't believe it, try it: after playing with fire and suffering severe burns, you are guaranteed never to play with fire again. If you drive recklessly and fall into a ditch, breaking a bone, you will never dare to drive recklessly again. "Once bitten by a snake, one fears even a rope for ten years"—this is exactly what it means.

After experiencing major events, some people are left with aftereffects. For instance, when someone else merely mentions something similar, the manas becomes psychologically panicked, fearful, and trembles. There are many other kinds of situations where the manas no longer wants to face those people and matters. Some children, after being abused just once, are deeply scarred and never willing to come into contact with that person again, nor willing to hear that person's name; upon hearing the name, they become terrified and unsettled.

When a small child touches something hot for the first time, he naturally dodges away; when encountering something cold, he naturally hunches his neck and shivers all over. This is the manas innately understanding hot and cold, without needing anyone to teach it. When an infant is hit for the first time, he also knows to cry loudly and knows pain—no one taught him this either. Infants innately know fullness and hunger, so they cry and fuss when hungry. Moreover, crying and fussing are also innate; no one teaches an infant how to cry and fuss.

No one teaches an infant those sensations of pain, saying, "This is pain; now you should cry, and you should cry like this." When an infant is first held and caressed by his parents, he feels very comfortable. No one teaches the infant that being held is comfortable, that being caressed is comfortable, that this is what comfort is, and that comfort should be expressed this way. None of this is taught; infants know it innately.

Subhūti was foremost in understanding emptiness among the Buddha's disciples. In a previous life he had already realized the emptiness of all dharmas, so even in his mother's womb he knew it was empty; at birth he also knew it was empty. All the family's possessions vanished into emptiness, and then all the possessions reappeared. This emptiness was realized by the manas.

Some things require the combined functioning of the six consciousnesses and the five aggregates in order to be expressed, and since the five aggregates and six consciousnesses are new, learning and adaptation are needed. The difference in how quickly each person learns is caused by the different experiences of the manas.

When the mind consciousness first begins to study Buddhism, everyone's mind consciousness is equally ignorant, but before long the differences become apparent. Some people study for a whole lifetime and still remain at the level of a single phrase of Buddha-recollection, still at the stage of reciting sutras over and over; some people, after just one month, seek out Chan (Zen) classics to study, and after a year they want to practice Chan and awaken to the Way—I myself am an example of this. Why is there such a great difference? The different experiences of the manas, and the different lengths of time spent studying Buddhism—a difference in time that may even exceed countless kalpas—result in enormous differences in studying the Dharma.

The differences between each person are caused by the differences in the manas. Whether or not one admits it, this is the fact. Does the fact care whether you admit it or not? The fact does not care who admits it or not; it will never change. As for the truth, even if not a single person in the Saha world acknowledges it, it remains the truth forever; it does not become non-truth simply because others refuse to acknowledge it. As for the true Buddhadharma, no matter who slanders it, the Buddhadharma is the Buddhadharma, and the truth is the truth.