The Interrelationship between Body and Mind

Body and mind mutually influence and are mutually connected; their relationship is intimate—indeed, they constrain each other moment after moment. The three consciousnesses of transformative agency (parināma) change the physical body moment after moment, and the physical body in turn moment after moment influences the feelings and thoughts of the conscious mind.

The Buddha said that within the tathāgatagarbha, the four great elements and the seven great elements are forever pure, neither unwholesome nor wholesome; no matter what wholesome or unwholesome karma they help sentient beings create, when they return to the tathāgatagarbha they remain absolutely pure. Sentient beings are constituted of pure seeds of the seven great elements; it is only that the mental concomitants (caittas) of the conscious mind are not pure.

Cultivation is in fact the cultivation of the mental concomitants (caittas), not the cultivation of the seeds of the seven great elements, nor the cultivation of the seeds of consciousness. The mental concomitants have both enlightenment and ignorance; at the very beginning there is only ignorance, and at the very end there is only enlightenment. The process in between is the process of cultivating the path and cultivating the mind. From the mental concomitants one can understand the mental activities of sentient beings; from the changes in the mental concomitants, one can understand the degree of a sentient being's cultivation and the degree to which their mental activities have transformed. Once the mind consciousness changes, causing the manas to change as well, the body immediately changes.

The transformation of body and mind is mainly the result of the transformation of the manas. When meditative concentration (samādhi) arises in cultivation, the body immediately changes; therefore meditative concentration must be the manas possessing concentration—the manas has transformed and no longer severely controls the physical body or grasps at sense objects.