The Operation of the Mental Factors of the Manas

Grasping (upādāna) is the function of the perception mental factor (saṃjñā-caitta). Its role is to discern the sign, take up the sign, and then assign a name to the sign; once there is a name, designation (abhilāpa) appears, and both the sign and the name are thereby acknowledged. Only after the manas takes up the sign can it deliberate (manana) and make the decision about how to act. Of course, the five universally present mental factors must run repeatedly, over and over, before a final overall decision can be made, and only then can action be taken. Therefore, when you see a person hesitating and unable to decide, you know that the mind consciousness and the manas are deliberating, continuously engaging in attention (manaskāra), contact (sparśa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saṃjñā), and volition (cetanā), with the mental factors operating in turn, and the five object-specific mental factors also participating in the operation—it is extremely complex. This is why the human brain is countless times more complex than a computer; a computer simply cannot compare with the human brain at all. What is called the human brain mainly refers to the functions and activities of the manas, with the six consciousnesses coming second.