The Manas Does Not Cling to the Flavor of Aversion

Question: The manas has a strange habit that is unknown to ordinary people: He often craves the flavor of anger. For example, some people cannot stand seeing others do well; whenever someone is stronger than they are, they give rise to anger. Worse still, some even take the lives of sentient beings to satisfy their own pleasure.

The manas is also a two-faced character: on one side defiled, on the other side pure. Therefore, the Consciousness-Only school calls Him the basis of defilement and purity (kleśa-vyavadāna-āśraya), because on one side of Him is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, and on the other side are the six transforming consciousnesses. The tathāgatagarbha on which He depends is constant and pure, while the six transforming consciousnesses on which He depends are constantly operating and defiled. For this reason, students of Consciousness-Only come to know that the manas is the basis of defilement and purity. Is the above statement appropriate?

Answer: The vast majority of the manas's habits are unknown to ordinary people, because ordinary people lack both meditative concentration (samādhi) and wisdom, and cannot realize the manas. Even if someone does realize the manas, because afflictions obstruct them and they have not transformed consciousness into wisdom, they cannot observe the manas's operations and cannot precisely know the mental activities of the manas, so misunderstandings abound. For those who have not eradicated afflictions and have not transformed consciousness into wisdom, the manas is endowed with all afflictions, and the greatest afflictive habits are greed and anger. If the manas is to give rise to mental activities of greed, He must consider the object of greed to be useful to Himself, something He likes, something that feels comfortable and pleasant, something that can satisfy His own preferences, interests, and vanity.

When anger manifests, what flavor is there when one is angry? This statement is very strange, because anger is a mental factor (caitta), a mental activity of the conscious mind. The claim that the manas craves His own mental activities does not hold up. Anger itself is a behavior that harms body and mind, and is even unpleasant. Who likes to be unhappy and to make things difficult for themselves? Unless one has masochistic tendencies, ordinary people do not like anger and will avoid it whenever possible. Even when one wants to take revenge on others, it injures the other person seven parts while damaging oneself ten parts; most people do not like this. Therefore, to say that the manas craves the flavor of anger—there is absolutely no such thing. From another perspective, "flavor" is the conscious mind's feeling toward the six sense objects of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma. The conscious mind can crave feelings toward sense objects, especially pleasant and comfortable feelings, but it will not crave the unpleasant feeling of being angry—there is no such principle.

People with relatively heavy anger will frequently give rise to angry behavior; they will release the fire in their hearts and project it onto others before they can calm down. Therefore, people with especially heavy anger will commit violence against others to vent their anger; only after the anger is vented can they feel somewhat comfortable, or even feel happy and joyful. Some people cannot find a target on which to vent their emotions, so they vent on themselves or on objects, and then their mood calms down. Only a very small number of special people are like this; most people are not. But this also does not show that they crave the flavor of anger. Anger is anger, and greed is greed; no one likes anger, yet there is no way around it—the manas simply has anger, and it flares up from time to time.

That is not how the basis of defilement and purity should be explained. The true meaning of the basis of defilement and purity is that the manas is the basis and source of the purity and defilement of the six consciousnesses; whether the six consciousnesses are defiled or pure depends on the manas to determine. Because the manas is the consciousness that takes charge, able to direct the actions of the six consciousnesses according to His own mental activities, the mental activities of the six consciousnesses depend on the manas. If the manas is defiled, He will inevitably direct the six consciousnesses to create defiled karma; if the manas is pure, He will inevitably direct the six consciousnesses to create pure actions, or the six consciousnesses will operate little or not at all.

Since beginningless kalpas, the manas has always relied on the tathāgatagarbha to be born and to operate, relying on the tathāgatagarbha to see all dharmas; yet He has never become pure by relying on the purity of the tathāgatagarbha—He has always been defiled. Therefore, the tathāgatagarbha is not the pure basis of the manas. Only after truly realizing the tathāgatagarbha can one gradually rely on the purity of the tathāgatagarbha and transform one's own defiled mental activities, becoming ever purer.

On the other hand, although the manas relies on the six consciousnesses to perceive the six sense objects and to create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, the manas's defilement is innate; the defilement exists without being perfumed by the six consciousnesses, and even when there are no six consciousnesses, the manas has always been defiled. Conversely, in the cycle of rebirth through the six realms, the manas constantly perfumes the six consciousnesses with His own defilement, teaching the six consciousnesses greed, anger, and delusion; the six consciousnesses then come into contact with defiled environments in the cycle of rebirth and transmit the greed, anger, and delusion they have been perfumed with back to the manas, thereby further increasing the manas's defilement of greed, anger, and delusion. Therefore, the manas's defilement is not born by relying on the six consciousnesses either. However, if the manas is to transform toward purity, it must rely on the six consciousnesses' cultivation and perfuming by the Buddha's teachings; only when the six consciousnesses are pure can the manas gradually become pure. Conversely, once the manas is pure, the six consciousnesses will not easily be perfumed by defiled environments and will inevitably also be pure.