The Mind Consciousness Attaining Fruition and Seeing the True Mind Is Merely a Transformed City

When a person's consciousness is clear and alert, with conscious control, the mental conduct they display is more civilized and of better character than when their consciousness is not clear and lacks conscious control—more rational, more cultivated, upright in character and conduct. The difference in behavior between these two states is enormous. Why is there such a great difference? Because the mental factors and mental conduct of the manas and the mind consciousness differ greatly. The mind consciousness discerns the six sense objects in fine detail and is relatively clever; it knows what is beneficial to itself and knows how it should present itself in front of others. The manas, however, does not discern the six sense objects clearly, has heavy habitual tendencies, is rather obstinate, and does not know how to act in ways that are beneficial to itself. As a result, once a person is hypnotized or anesthetized with alcohol and the consciousness is no longer clear, the consciousness becomes nearly the same as the manas, unable to control the manas and unable to keep up appearances; the manas's intrinsic nature is then exposed, and its behavior differs drastically from when it was sober, with all sorts of ugly conduct manifesting.

A person's inner world refers to the mental factors and mental conduct of the manas. These can be covered over by the superficial mental conduct of the mind consciousness; covering over the manas's mental conduct is called pretense, and when the mind consciousness and the manas are inconsistent with each other, this is called hypocrisy. Making an effort only at the level of the mind consciousness has little effect. For a bodhisattva who has accomplished the transformation of consciousness into wisdom, the manas has been transformed into the wisdom of equality, and afflictions have already been eliminated. If such a person is hypnotized or anesthetized with alcohol, his manas remains as it is, much the same as when he is sober. The manas is the true root of a person, representing a person's genuine character and virtue; the mind consciousness's display on its own is not true virtue.

While awake, the mind consciousness can cover over the manas's ignorance and lack of wisdom. But in the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava), the mind consciousness is weak and can no longer continue to conceal and control the manas, so the manas's ignorance, foolishness, and afflictions will manifest without any obstruction. In the end, because of the manas's ignorance and afflictions, it takes rebirth, continuing the ignorance and afflictions of future lives. If the mind consciousness attains the fruits and sees the true mind, in the antarā-bhava it cannot maintain the wisdom of attaining the fruits and seeing the true mind; the manas, which has not attained the fruits or seen the true mind, will manifest ignorance, with the afflictions of self-view and self-grasping being deep and heavy. In the end, it takes rebirth through the manas's afflictions of self-view and self-grasping, continuing the self-view and self-grasping of future lives and continuing to transmigrate through birth and death. Therefore, a person of true wisdom should strive to genuinely eliminate self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) and awaken to the true mind, and not remain at the level of the mind consciousness's intellectual understanding—that is a conjured city, not a true place of rest and refuge.