Can one attain enlightenment in the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava)?

Question: Someone says that at the time of death, when the five aggregates (including the material body and the deluded mind: namely feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness) have dissolved and vanished but the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) has not yet arisen, what remains is true suchness (tathatā), and this is one's original face before one's parents were born. In fact, this could also be changed to investigating "What is it after death?" or "What is the face after death?" This claim is also incorrect, isn't it?

Answer: This claim is of course also incorrect. After death, when the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) has not yet arisen, what exists is not true suchness, but the combined body of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses. The manas absolutely cannot cease and perish—unless one is an arhat (the fourth fruit). At this time one cannot attain enlightenment: there is no mind consciousness, and the manas is not that powerful. The two must investigate together, and moreover there must be no obstruction by karmic obstructions.

While still alive, one can investigate the face after death, but it is rather difficult, because after death it is still the coalescence of the real and the deluded—not the real alone. It would be better to investigate "Who drags this corpse around?" This huatou is comparatively easier.

Before the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) is born, there are the seventh consciousness and the eighth consciousness. One must not think that at this time there is only true suchness. When the real and the deluded are coalesced together, one must not take the deluded as the real either; the coalescence of the real and the deluded is not true suchness. Such an enlightenment is an enlightenment of guessing and imagination, no different from not being enlightened at all.

Before the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) is born, there are only the seventh consciousness and the eighth consciousness. At this time there is no way to attain enlightenment, because the manas cannot by itself discern the eighth consciousness—it cannot even concretely discern the six sense objects, let alone the eighth consciousness, which is so hidden and secret? Even when the neutrino-body appears and the mind consciousness appears, enlightenment is still very difficult, because the mind consciousness is extremely weak and its discerning capacity extremely low—how could one attain enlightenment?

For a person who has not eliminated the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), after death, when the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) has not yet arisen, there is especial panic and terror, fearing that the self is about to vanish and perish. At this time one still takes the five aggregates and eighteen realms (dhātu) as the self. How could the manas recognize the gap after the five aggregates and six consciousnesses have perished as true suchness? It is utterly impossible. It would be better to use the gap between the preceding thought not yet arising and the following thought not yet arising, which is easier for attaining enlightenment, because at that time there is after all the knowing of the mind consciousness, and one is still in meditative concentration (samādhi).