Compilation of Daily Discourses
Chapter 4: The Functions and Roles of the Manas
1. The Manas's Function of Receiving and Processing Information
Some materials state: the brain receives a large amount of information every second, yet it can only process a very small portion of it; if it were to process all of this information, the brain would be overwhelmed. In order to function normally, the brain automatically filters information, automatically ignoring information it does not care about or that is trivial, and only pays attention to some important and useful information. Because each person's focus differs, the phenomena seen in the same information also differ, and so do the attitudes and methods of handling it. When encountering problems, how can one remember the key points and main themes, enhance wisdom, and solve problems? One must proactively pose questions to the brain; these questions should point to the core and key points of the problem, as well as the methods of solution. In this way, the brain will think along these directions and thereby solve the problem.
What does "brain" refer to? Worldly people do not understand that the brain is material form (rūpa-dharma) and has no functions of a conscious mind; what they call the brain generally refers to the manas. It is the manas that receives large amounts of information and selectively processes problems—not the brain, and not the mind consciousness either. Because at that time the mind consciousness has not yet appeared, all the information falls into the manas, and the manas does not have the ability or energy to face and process all the information; it can only screen out the useful and relatively important information to process. Only after this selection does the mind consciousness appear to help the manas process the information.
From this, we can see the manas's nature of silently encompassing all dharmas and its role as the master over all dharmas. All dharmas, of course, include the five sense objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, as well as the six sense objects. If the manas only contacts the mental sense objects (dharma-āyatana) and not the five sense objects, where would the information of the five sense objects fall? Who would receive and screen it? Who would decide how to handle it? Only after the manas has made an initial screening of the five sense objects are the five consciousnesses brought forth to recognize and process them; therefore, the manas has the power of decision and handling over the five sense objects and the five consciousnesses.
It is the manas that automatically filters information and automatically attends to useful information related to itself; this is the initial screening stage for the large amount of information. At this time the mind consciousness has not yet appeared and is unaware of the manas's activities and all the information, so the mind consciousness has no power to participate, decide, or preside; it can only passively accept the information the manas gives it, subject to the manas's control and regulation. If the manas did not filter and screen information, it could not cope with the massive amount of information and might even collapse. Even the information remaining after screening is enormous and very difficult to deal with entirely; this causes the manas to simultaneously attend to an extremely large number of dharmas, and thus it cannot concentrate its energy on dealing with this information, appearing to lack wisdom.
How can the manas develop wisdom? Of course, it must constantly filter out and reduce useless information, attending only to the information that should be handled in the present moment, paying no attention to anything else. Only when energy is concentrated in this way can it handle the attended information with wisdom. However, concentrating energy is extremely difficult; it requires continuous training through cultivating meditative concentration (dhyāna), so that the manas can firmly fix itself on one dharma to contemplate.
It is also the manas that remembers key information and main themes and attends to and deliberates upon them; this is the function of the master-consciousness that can receive all information. When the manas performs these functions, the mind consciousness does not know and cannot participate. Only after the manas has remembered the information can it deliberate on how to handle it, deciding whether to discard and ignore it or to deepen the discernment of it. If it wants to deepen the discernment, the six consciousnesses will appear and discern this information; after the discernment, the manas understands and will decide again how to face and handle it. From this we can see that at every stage, it is the manas that makes decisions and presides, while it is the six consciousnesses that do the specific discernment and analysis; the six consciousnesses are subordinate to the manas.
Who poses questions to the brain? It is the mind consciousness posing questions to the manas; it is the mind consciousness wanting the manas to deliberate upon, select, and process the large amount of information, and to attend to the key points and useful information. Posing questions is not something the manas can do, because questioning involves silent language, words, and sounds, with which the manas does not correspond; the manas can only use hints toward the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness is unknowingly directed by them. The brain described by worldly people as being able to receive and process information refers to the manas; what can temporarily store information is the supreme faculty (indriya), and the manas can contact, know, and process the dharmas within the supreme faculty. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says the manas silently encompasses all dharmas; the manas's extensive characteristic of grasping is fully revealed in this material.
Is the manas busy? Does He passively receive large amounts of information or actively receive it? There is both active and passive reception. Actively receiving large amounts of information is called extensive grasping; passive reception is done out of necessity, because karmic seeds have matured and the tathāgatagarbha must manifest and transmit them over—for example, information such as illness or car accidents, which He cannot miss. Active thinking, more than passive acceptance, can enhance wisdom. So who poses the questions, who thinks, who solves the problems, who enhances wisdom? If you know what problem needs to be solved, you will know who should solve it. The problem of screening information and attending to information to be solved is the manas's responsibility.
2. Why Must the Five Consciousnesses' Discernment of the Five Sense Objects Be Decided by the Manas?
Question: When my body itches, I cannot help wanting to scratch it, and then I realize that this is all the body consciousness contacting the sense object—where is the itch? Do not fabricate. So I stopped attending to that place, and the itch immediately disappeared. If I continued to attend to it, the itch remained; when I stopped attending again, the itch disappeared again. This went back and forth twice; after a slightly longer interval, when I no longer attended to it, the itch disappeared completely. Did the itch truly disappear?
Answer: When faculty and object contact, consciousness arises; once consciousness is born, it discerns the object realm; after discernment, feelings arise, sensing cold, heat, touch, pain, itch, and so on; afterwards, emotions of suffering, happiness, sorrow, joy, and neutral feeling arise—this is the sequence of operation of the six sense bases (ṣaḍāyatana), contact, and feeling in the twelve links of dependent origination. Whether faculty and object should contact is decided by the manas. For example, when the body itches, if the manas does not attend to the itchy place and shifts attention elsewhere, then the mind consciousness and body consciousness cannot appear at the itchy place; the itch as a sense object of touch is not discerned, and the feeling does not arise, so one does not know or feel the itch. This is the manas shifting its attention, causing the six consciousnesses not to arise at that place and thus not to discern it—it is not that there is no itch. If the manas does not shift its attention, the body faculty contacts the sense object of itch, the body consciousness and mind consciousness arise to discern the sense object of itch, and one feels itchy; afterwards the manas will choose to scratch, and so the body consciousness and mind consciousness scratch the itch.
This shows that the manas is the master-consciousness: it dominates the contact of faculty and object, dominates the arising and ceasing, coming and going of the six consciousnesses, dominates the discernment of the six consciousnesses, and dominates bodily, verbal, and mental actions. This also shows that whether the five faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body should contact the five sense objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch is all decided by the manas, and the discernment of the five consciousnesses is also decided by the manas. Here a problem arises: why does the manas dominate the arising and discernment of the five consciousnesses? Why is the five consciousnesses' discernment of the five sense objects decided by the manas? Since the manas can make such decisions, it must have first discerned the five sense objects before it could take or discard them and make judgments and decisions. This shows that the manas can discern the six sense objects, not only the mental sense objects alone; otherwise, how could the five faculties contact the five sense objects, and how could the five consciousnesses arise?
3. Which Conscious Mind Can Perfectly and Clearly Know Without Relying on Mental Thoughts?
There is a sentence in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: 如此会中摩诃迦叶，久灭意根，圆明了知不因心念。Question: Mahākāśyapa's long extinction of the manas—which consciousness does it refer to as extinguished? What is meant by "extinguished"?
Answer: A person with the superknowledge of knowing others' minds can perceive others' mental thoughts anytime and anywhere, as long as the other person has mental thoughts. If the other person is rather deep and reserved, without mental thoughts, or if the other person has meditative concentration and does not give rise to thoughts at will, then their mental thoughts cannot be perceived, and the superknowledge of knowing others' minds becomes useless. Which mind's thoughts does this "mental thought" refer to?
What the superknowledge of knowing others' minds knows are the mental thoughts of the mind consciousness, because the mind consciousness's thoughts involve language, words, or sounds—sounds including the inner voice—so the mind consciousness's mental activities have form and appearance and are easy to discern. The manas's thoughts, however, have no language, words, or sounds, and no obvious marks of activity, so they are not easily discerned; discerning the manas's mental activities must be done through bodily, verbal, and mental actions, through the activities of the body faculty and the mind consciousness.
So what did Mahākāśyapa extinguish in his "long extinction of the manas" such that he can perfectly and clearly know without relying on mental thoughts? Of course, this "mental thought" refers to the mind consciousness's thoughts. Mahākāśyapa's perfect and clear knowing is not through the mind consciousness's knowing; it is the manas knowing directly, knowing the inner and outer realms of the six sense objects, directly substituting for the knowing of the six consciousnesses. Therefore, what Mahākāśyapa extinguished was the mind consciousness and the mind consciousness's thoughts, not the manas. If the manas had been extinguished, Mahākāśyapa's five aggregates would not exist, and he would have entered Nirvāṇa without remainder.
4. Does the Manas Have the Power of Introspection and Self-Validating Cognition?
Some people say the manas has no self-validating cognition (svasaṃvedana) and no power of introspection (pratyavekṣā-bala), that He never knows His own past, and that He can only know His own past through the mind consciousness's observation. This statement is very wrong, because only the manas and the tathāgatagarbha continue life after life without ceasing. The manas has knowing; He can know all the dharmas manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, and He corresponds with karmic seeds. From countless past lives up to this life, everything He has experienced has never been forgotten; what He knows far exceeds what the mind consciousness knows. The information known by the mind consciousness in a single lifetime is far too little, incomparable to the manas. Moreover, the mind consciousness of this life has not experienced past experiences, so how could it serve as the manas's reliance? On the contrary, much information can only be known by the mind consciousness through relying on the manas—especially information from past lives, which the mind consciousness entirely depends on the manas to know. Those without superknowledge are like this, and those with superknowledge are likewise so, without exception.
For example, when a person meets another person in a certain setting, he feels this person is very kind and familiar, like a long-parted family member; in an instant his heart surges with emotion and he cannot control himself, even becoming so moved that his eyes fill with hot tears. In fact, these two people were family in a past life with deep karmic affinity, so upon meeting in this life they feel especially close. This is absolutely not something felt after the mind consciousness came to know it—the mind consciousness knows nothing and can only know through relying on the manas; it is the one who knows belatedly, and even then only when the mind consciousness has wisdom. When the mind consciousness lacks wisdom, even with eyes brimming with tears, it does not know why—it is muddled and confused. The mind consciousness does not know why it would suddenly burst into tears; of course, it is that the manas could not control Himself and burst into tears. If the manas were not moved, even if the mind consciousness were moved, there would be no tears—except for actors.
Another example: a person feels uncomfortable in the heart upon seeing another person, and the mind consciousness does not know the reason, but the manas knows it—only He cannot express it so that the mind consciousness understands clearly: it turns out this person often speaks ill of him behind his back. The mind consciousness has not witnessed these things and certainly does not know them; the feeling of discomfort is of course the result of the manas alerting the mind consciousness.
Now, does the manas have the power of introspection and self-validating cognition? Of course it does—this is beyond any doubt. A person with cultivation: his manas will constantly introspect and examine whether he has done wrong, whether he has harmed others, whether his words and deeds are appropriate and proper, and so on. A person without cultivation: when encountering major, urgent matters and very important people, his manas will also introspect and examine whether what he says and does is appropriate and whether there might be bad consequences, and so on. Only extremely foolish people may have a manas without the power of introspection and examination, often being unaware and not knowing even when great disaster has been incurred.
The manas's introspection is the manas's introspection; the mind consciousness's introspection is the mind consciousness's introspection. The two cannot substitute for each other, because each has its own mental factors (caittas) and they do not use each other's—there is only mutual influence between them. The manas cannot take the mind consciousness's introspection as its own and confirm it, ceasing to examine and introspect itself. Even if such a situation occurs, it is under special circumstances when the manas's wisdom is insufficient; afterwards, once the manas can introspect itself again, it will mostly regret its previous decisions. For example, a person does something and forgets it after finishing, no longer thinking about it. But not long after, upon encountering a condition, he remembers it, slaps his thigh and says: "I did that thing wrong." Is this regret the mind consciousness's regret or the manas's regret? Was it the mind consciousness's introspection that discovered the mistake, or the manas's introspection?
Here there is no time or opportunity for the mind consciousness to analyze, yet the manas very quickly decides to slap the thigh, expressing regret. The more quickly the thigh is slapped, the more it is the manas's discovery of the error after introspection, although slapping the thigh is an action jointly performed by the mind consciousness and the body consciousness; the harder the thigh is slapped, the more the manas regrets. It is like when hot water scalds the hand and the hand is immediately flung away—there is no time for the mind consciousness to analyze; if one waited for the mind consciousness to analyze before flinging the hand away, the hand would long since have been scalded beyond recognition, and flinging it or not would make no difference. If everything required the mind consciousness, many things would be like cold cucumber dishes—too late to remedy. When one has done wrong and deeply reflects and repents—sincere repentance, earnest repentance, heartfelt repentance—these are all the manas's repentance, reflection, and introspection. The mind consciousness's repentance is not sincere at all; saying but not doing refers to the mind consciousness's failure to keep its word, this lack of mastery.
5. Evidence That the Manas Has Self-Validating Cognition
First, from the behavior of retracting and regretting, it can be proven that the manas has self-validating cognition. The behavior of retracting occurs because earlier, when the manas lacked the wisdom to discern, He blindly listened to the mind consciousness's analysis and guidance and made a hasty decision; afterwards, the manas discovered that things were not as expected and that the original decision was wrong, and so a sense of regret arose in the mind. The manas discovering that the decision He made was wrong—this is the function of the manas's self-validating cognition: after observing Himself, He discovered His own erroneous decision.
Second, from the transformation of the manas's mental activities, the manas has self-validating cognition. Through studying and practicing Buddhism, through the mind consciousness's continuous permeation and influence, the manas gradually recognizes the truth, recognizes His own former foolishness, makes a vow to correct Himself, and walks the path to buddhahood. Continuously raising self-awareness during practice is the function of the manas's self-validating cognition; continuously correcting Himself is the function of the manas's self-validating cognition; changing His own mental activities and changing His mental factors is the function of the manas's self-validating cognition.
If the manas had no power of introspection and no self-validating cognition, the manas could not correct Himself. It is true that the manas relies on the mind consciousness's permeation and guidance, but the one who ultimately recognizes the truth and changes Himself must be the manas Himself, not the mind consciousness. If the mind consciousness could change the manas, there would be no need to permeate and guide the manas—one could just change it directly. The meaning of permeation is that the mind consciousness's ideas and views are accepted and agreed to by the manas, so that the manas also possesses the same ideas and views, and with the transformed ideas and views makes correct decisions and actions; then bodily, verbal, and mental actions are transformed.
The mind consciousness can only change itself, not the manas; if the manas does not want to change Himself, it is impossible for the mind consciousness to forcibly change Him. If the mind consciousness could forcibly change the manas, then studying and practicing Buddhism, even attaining buddhahood, would be easy. But changing oneself must be an active behavior, not a passive one; passivity may last for a moment but can never last forever. Otherwise, anyone could be changed by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, escape the suffering of the six paths of saṃsāra, and walk the path to buddhahood, and everyone would not be far from buddhahood—but the facts are not so. This principle can be understood through careful contemplation; it is not hard to comprehend.
6. All Dharmas Have No Master and No Creator
Original text of the Sūtra on the Ten Wholesome Karmas Spoken by the Buddha: 诸法集起。毕竟无主。无我我所。虽各随业。所现不同。而实于中。无有作者。故一切法。皆不思议。自性如幻。
Explanation: The accumulation and arising of all dharmas in the world ultimately has no ruler, no master, and neither the nature of self nor the nature of what belongs to self. Although these dharmas each arise in accordance with their own different karmic seeds and karmic conditions, the dharma-marks that manifest are different. Yet in the process of these dharmas arising and ceasing, there truly is no creator; therefore, all these dharmas are inconceivable, and the self-nature of dharmas is like an illusion.
The "gathering of dharmas" means karmic actions gathering together to form karmic seeds; after the karmic seeds mature, with the assistance of karmic conditions, the various dharmas are born. And in the birth of dharmas, no one acts as a ruler within, controlling the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of the dharmas—there is no controller. These dharmas have no nature of self; they are selfless, and they do not belong to self. For example, in the gathering and arising of the aggregate of form—who made the aggregate of form gather and arise? The tathāgatagarbha has no mental activity of gathering and does not govern the aggregate of form; the manas is also illusory and does not govern the aggregate of form; the karmic seeds and karmic conditions are also illusory, and none has a mind of gathering—yet the aggregate of form inexplicably appears. Is the aggregate of form the self? It is not the self, because it has no autonomy; it is empty. Does the aggregate of form belong to the self? It does not belong to the self either, because it is empty. The aggregates of feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are all like this, and so are the six faculties, six sense objects, and six consciousnesses.
Sentient beings A, B, C, and D, although all appearing in the six paths of saṃsāra in accordance with their own karmic actions and karmic seeds, manifest different appearances, identities, statuses, merit, races, and so on. Yet truly within these manifest marks, there is no creator—no one has created the appearances of sentient beings' saṃsāra through the six paths. Therefore, A's heavenly-appearance is inconceivable; the self-nature of the deva-appearance is illusory and transformed, with no substantial deva. B's human-appearance is inconceivable; the self-nature of the human is illusory and transformed, with no substantial human. C's hell-appearance and D's hungry-ghost-appearance are likewise so—inconceivable, self-nature illusory and transformed, with no substance.
These dharmas may not be too difficult for the mind consciousness to understand, but the mind consciousness can only grasp a rough outline without knowing the inner details; that is, the mind consciousness cannot know the specific causes and the specific operations of the dharmas. It is like looking at flowers through fog—blurry and indistinct. Only by using the manas to deeply deliberate within meditative concentration can one penetrate and awaken, seeing all details completely, knowing why things are so; from then on one realizes the dharmas, reaching the very bottom of the dharmas, and will never again look at flowers through fog or scratch an itch through a boot. For any dharma, the more the manas deliberates, the more interesting it becomes, the more one wants to investigate, the more wisdom arises, the more meditative concentration deepens, and the whole person becomes enraptured—this is the joy of exploring the truth. Abandon the mind consciousness's shallow understanding and learn the manas's deep deliberation, and one will become ever wiser, with increasingly clear thinking and logic, becoming ever more steady and wise; all difficult problems will no longer be difficult and will be readily solved.
7. The Difference Between the Mind Consciousness's Patience and the Manas's Patience
Any kind of mental state and emotion, as well as mental activity—cognition, insight, discrimination, and other functions of the conscious mind regarding people, affairs, things, and principles—are divided into two kinds: those of the mind consciousness and those of the manas. Their levels of depth differ, and there is a certain difference between the two; they are not entirely consistent or identical.
For example, patience is divided into the mind consciousness's patience and the manas's patience; perhaps both have patience, or perhaps only one has patience. When the manas has no patience, the mind consciousness's patience does not last long. For example, when doing something for a long time, the manas loses patience and does not want to continue, but the mind consciousness is still pretending to persist. The so-called pretending is that the mind consciousness and the manas have two inconsistent mentalities, each with its own ideas, yet temporarily still maintaining the current state. In fact, the manas is planning other matters; once the planning is done, He will decide to go do other things, and the mind consciousness cannot preside to continue persisting—then the mind consciousness's patience terminates and ends.
When the mind consciousness has no patience but the manas has patience, even though the mind consciousness is restless like a monkey with various plans in mind, because the manas persists without change and makes no other decisions, the mind consciousness has no choice but to continue, having no alternative, because it cannot preside. When both have patience, the attitude toward doing things remains unchanged, and one will do the same thing for years as if for days, or for days as if for one day, with a mind neither weary nor lax.
8. In Cultivating the Mind, Is the Observer-Supervisor the Manas or the Mind Consciousness?
Question: In my moving, standing, sitting, and lying down, and in the flow of my mental thoughts, there is an observer, a supervisor, closely watching all these behaviors. Is this observer-supervisor the manas or the mind consciousness?
The questioner himself is certainly observing and supervising himself; without cultivating to a certain degree, it is impossible to supervise and observe oneself. Such awakening and self-discipline come only after one recognizes that one has afflictions and deficiencies and wants to change oneself; only after having this thought can one observe and supervise one's own words, deeds, and mental thoughts.
Generally speaking, it is the mind consciousness that observes and supervises itself; this "self" is the five aggregates. These mental thoughts and bodily and verbal actions are all created under the manas's direction; although the mind consciousness also participates, it is not the mind consciousness that leads—the mind consciousness mostly participates passively. That is why the mind consciousness needs to observe and understand its own mental activities, and to observe and understand the manas's mental activities. Why can the mind consciousness constantly introspect and supervise itself? It is still because the manas, through practice, has developed awakening, which prompts the mind consciousness to introspect and supervise itself. When the manas has not yet awakened, He is very unwilling to deeply dissect and understand His own mental thoughts and activities; generally, He conceals Himself more often.
When the manas's afflictions are heavy and He is not yet awakened, He always likes to deceive Himself and deceive others. Since He wants to deceive Himself, how could He let the mind consciousness introspect and supervise Him, understand and dissect Him? So even less would He want others to understand and dissect Him. Thus, unawakened people are extremely protective of their shortcomings. Those who protect their shortcomings also like to praise and boast about themselves; if others do not praise them, they will praise themselves, elevating themselves so as to gain self-comfort and self-satisfaction. Such people are fragile inside, which is why they need affirmation from themselves and others to feel secure. As long as a person has the behavior of protecting his shortcomings, he is unwilling to listen to others' advice and suggestions; at such times, debating with and advising him has little effect. Only for those willing to correctly recognize and change themselves does advice have meaning and effect, and only then will one not be despised or even come into conflict.
9. The Manas's Mode of expression
Question: In a dream, persons A and B converse. A asks: "Is there a self in feeling and consciousness?" B answers: "There is no self." Both the question and the answer are the mind consciousness's mode of expression through language. Did the manas participate in the question and answer?
Answer: The entire dream is presented by the manas, using the person A to raise His own question, with the purpose of letting His mind consciousness think about it and solve this problem on His behalf. The manas needing the mind consciousness to solve the problem means He has already given rise to doubt and wants to resolve the doubt, and so He produced this dream.
Expressing through language and words is the function of the mind consciousness; behind the mind consciousness's expression, there is the manas's decision and impetus, the manas's thinking. The mind consciousness is impelled by the manas to express; what is expressed may be the mind consciousness's own view, may be the manas's view, or may be the view of both together. If the manas has no questioning doubt about this issue and does not want to know the answer, He would not have this dream.
If the manas already knows the answer to the question, how should He express it when the other party asks? Because the manas has no function of language and words, if He wants to express, first, it is through the mind consciousness's language, words, and sounds, and the mind consciousness will answer quickly without deliberation, as if not passing through the brain, without needing to think; if there is a moment of thinking and hesitation, what is expressed is generally more the mind consciousness's own view. Second, the manas may express through a mental realm, or what is called a state; the manas will present a realm representing His own ideas, views, and mental state. The deepest state is usually called the state of meditative absorption (samādhi); the eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) and seeing the mind and realizing one's nature both involve the appearance of the samādhi state of the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā, representing that the manas has realized emptiness and selflessness. When the manas abides in the samādhi state, that is seeing the Path.
If the manas has understood and realized the selflessness of feeling and consciousness, what manifestations will there be in daily life? What differences from before? What mental dispositions and habits have changed?
Bai Xuexiang's experience: The changes in daily life are extremely great; only habitual tendencies will arise from time to time, but they are instantly noticed by awareness, and gradually the habitual tendencies become less and less powerful. These habitual tendencies are precisely karmic force.
Ru She's experience: One no longer cares about the cognitive troubles brought by feeling and consciousness, and has no motivation to give rise to greedy or deluded thoughts; afflictions rarely arise in the mind, the pace of life slows down a lot, and experiencing people and affairs feels like watching from outside, with a sense of detachment—but I don't know whether it will increase compassion.
Having a sense of detachment from people and affairs means a certain degree of separation from people and affairs, not being so closely attached and dependent; this is a psychological state close to emptiness, showing that cultivation has achieved certain results and one has entered the stage of the four aids to penetration (nirvedha-bhāgīya). After passing this stage, the view of self is eradicated.
10. The Truth of Death
What is the difference between cardiac death and brain death? Why can a person still blink in the instant of being decapitated? Why, in the instant the head and body are separated, does one still feel one has limbs and a torso, only that the sensations do not obey one's command? Why does everyone feel that the most important part of the body is the brain, and in danger one instinctively covers the head?
Cardiac death is when the heart and pulse stop beating, blood is no longer circulated, and breathing stops. Brain death is when the brain's central nervous system has no reflex activity; the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body have no reaction at all, no neural activity; the pupils of the eyes dilate and do not react to light; examination of the ear, nose, and tongue shows no reaction at all; the body's muscles are weak and without elasticity; and one cannot control urination and defecation. These phenomena show that the brain's supreme faculty (indriya) has completely lost its function. At cardiac death, the brain is not necessarily dead, because there may still be supply of qi and blood to the brain, the six sense objects can still be transmitted into the supreme faculty, and there can be a faint existence of the six consciousnesses; whereas at brain death, cardiac death has certainly occurred. Brain death is true death, but if the examination for brain death is not thorough, there may also be misjudgment—deeming someone dead who is not yet dead.
In the instant of decapitation, there is still supply of qi and blood to the brain's supreme faculty, the six sense objects can still be transmitted to the brain's supreme faculty, and the manas can still control the central nervous system's activity and direct the five faculties and six consciousnesses, so at this time one can still blink. Because at this time the information of the six sense objects still remains in the supreme faculty, and the body's information is also in the supreme faculty, the manas and mind consciousness habitually believe the body still exists, and the manas still wants to control the body's activities; only when He feels He cannot control it does He know the body has separated from the head (oneself). The manas knows many things—part of it is His inherent function, but most is purely experience; having experienced so much, He knows it innately, yet He cannot express this knowing, so the mind consciousness does not understand it. As for ignorance (avidyā)—does the manas have more of it, or the mind consciousness?
If the death is not natural, then what kind of death is the quickest, taking extremely short time, with the least suffering? That is direct decapitation. The qi and blood needed for the brain's activity are only those in the supreme faculty; once consumed, death occurs—very quickly. When the qi and blood are gone, the six sense objects are no longer transmitted into the supreme faculty, the six consciousnesses cease, the suffering stops, and the person dies. If other parts of the body are cut, the farther from the brain and the heart and internal organs, the longer the qi and blood supply the brain, and the slower the death. The cruelest and most painful death is death by slow slicing (língchí)—cutting one knife at a time not at vital parts; the six consciousnesses do not cease, and one will continuously feel pain.
What is the most comfortable way to die? Death supported by wholesome karma and meritorious karma, ascending to the heavenly realm, is very comfortable and joyful: body and mind soft and pliant, countenance radiant, surpassing that in life; the heavenly realm appears before one, heavenly music greets one, heavenly fragrance fills the room; the moment the mind rejoices, the breath ceases, and the consciousness appears in the heavens. An even more comfortable death is being greeted by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, with the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) riding on a lotus and being reborn in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī) or other buddha-lands in the snap of a finger; but this requires greater and more wholesome karma and meritorious karma as support, which ordinary people cannot cultivate.
