The Difference Between Manas and Mind Consciousness in Doubt and Discernment

Question: When the eye consciousness and mind consciousness have finished viewing two very similar colors, but cannot yet confirm what they saw, doubting that they did not see clearly, they decide to look again in order to distinguish them clearly. Is this doubt and decision the doubt and decision of the eye consciousness, or the doubt and decision of the mind consciousness, or the doubt and decision of the manas? When one sees a traffic light at an intersection and then decides to stop or drive, is this decision the decision of the eye consciousness, the decision of the mind consciousness, or the decision of the manas?

Answer: The discriminating activities of the eye consciousness and mind consciousness can only appear when driven by the manas; they are governed and directed by the manas, and serve as the manas's tools for discriminating material sense-objects. Since this is so, the manas must understand the material sense-objects discriminated by the eye consciousness and mind consciousness, and afterward it must make a choice and a decision, whereupon the six consciousnesses will engage in further activity. Comparing two colors is decided and directed by the manas. After the two consciousnesses have distinguished them but cannot confirm, the manas also cannot confirm; when the mind consciousness doubts about the colors, the manas also doubts, and thus the manas decides to discriminate again. Although discriminating and distinguishing colors is the proper task of the eye consciousness, the eye consciousness cannot undertake and discriminate them alone; it must discriminate them together with the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna). The mind consciousness can discriminate the shades and degrees of colors, the names and meanings of colors, whether they are comfortable to look at, whether they are bright, and other subtle marks, while the eye consciousness discriminates the coarse marks of colors, not knowing the names, the degree of brightness, the degree of comfort, and so on. Therefore, with regard to the five sense-objects in the aspect of color, the manas can also contact and discriminate them, only its discrimination is not clear, and it needs to rely on the two tools of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness.

Seeing a traffic light at an intersection is likewise discriminated by the eye consciousness and mind consciousness, governed and directed by the manas. On the basis of the discriminations made by the two consciousnesses, the manas makes its own discrimination, and then decides to stop or drive, as well as to turn left or turn right. Among these decisions, first comes the decision of the mind consciousness, offered as a reference for the manas; the manas then engages in its own deliberation (manasikāra) and makes the decision, and does not completely follow the opinions and views of the mind consciousness.