What Does the Manas Deliberate About?

The manas continually scrutinizes and deliberates upon all the object-aspects manifested by the eighth consciousness, but its deliberation has degrees of urgency and importance, has emphasis and priorities—it does not deliberate upon all dharmas simultaneously. Because the manas can cognize all the dharmas manifested by the eighth consciousness, only after cognizing them can it exercise its deliberative nature, or deliberate selectively. The object-aspects manifested by the eighth consciousness can be extremely extensive, and the manas's range of deliberation is correspondingly vast, making it difficult for it to settle on one place or a few limited places. This makes it hard for the manas to concentrate and hard for it to develop meditative power. Only through special training—where the manas directs its attention and deliberation toward only a few dharmas—or when the manas has eliminated its grasping and clinging toward certain dharmas and no longer clings excessively, can it attain meditative concentration, and only then can wisdom grow stronger.

For example, those who have cultivated the four dhyānas, the eight meditative absorptions, and preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) must have meditative concentration in their manas; those who possess various kinds of meditative absorption (samādhi) must likewise have concentration in their manas. Even those who cultivate non-Buddhist paths, such as practitioners of qigong and various other disciplines, as well as scientific researchers and scientists in various fields—their manas all possess meditative concentration. Of course, the best and deepest concentration is that of the Buddha's manas: the profound and unsurpassed meditative concentration possessed after the manas has completely accomplished the transformation of consciousness into wisdom. The manas of bodhisattvas at the first bhūmi and above begins to transform consciousness into wisdom, possessing one portion or multiple portions of the wisdom of no-self of dharmas; they have already eliminated the self-view of persons and eliminated one portion or multiple portions of the self-grasping of dharmas. Their clinging nature is greatly reduced, so the concentration of their manas is certainly not shallow. Up through the eighth bhūmi and the Buddha stage, the various samādhis are inexhaustible and unfathomably versatile, and the concentration of the manas becomes incomparably deep and vast. Because the manas has excellent meditative power, its deliberation on dharmas is concentrated and focused, and its wisdom becomes deep and vast.