Karmic formations are mainly the mental formations of the manas

Is a dharma created without the mind consciousness still a karmic formation, and does it have retributive results? It still belongs to karmic formations and has retributive results; moreover, being a formation that arises in dependence upon karma, it belongs even more to karmic formations. For example, when the manas enters the womb together with the tathāgatagarbha, the mind consciousness is not involved, yet this karmic formation is enormously significant—it is the greatest and most crucial of all karmic formations, a decisive one that determines the direction of a sentient being's birth and death, and it is one link in the twelve-linked chain of dependent arising of birth and death. Because the manas has ignorance, it inevitably produces karmic formations of birth and death and inevitably enters the womb, following along with birth and death. If the manas entering the womb together with the tathāgatagarbha were not considered a karmic formation, then there would be no karmic formations at all in the threefold world.

When the manas and the tathāgatagarbha together go to the land of bliss (Sukhāvatī) to create the lotus flower, without the participation of the mind consciousness, this karmic formation is also extremely great; it is an absolutely wholesome karmic formation that determines the sentient being's rebirth destination toward the land of bliss after death, freeing them from the bondage of birth and death in the evil world of the five turbidities, so that in the future they may, under Amitābha Buddha's embracing care, awaken to the true mind and see the true nature, and then fly off to the worlds of the ten directions to broadly benefit sentient beings.

When the manas and the tathāgatagarbha together disturb others, together bless others, together enter another person's dream, together alert others, or when, without the mind consciousness, one turns over in sleep and crushes a newborn to death, and so on—all of these are karmic formations; some are wholesome, some unwholesome, and some neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and all have retributive results. As long as there is mind and there is action, it is karma, and it has retributive results. When one is asleep at midnight without the mind consciousness and turns over, crushing a newborn to death, this is unintentional; it is a neutral (avyākṛta) karma, and it also has retributive results. The immediate retributive result is the pain of losing the child, and the result in future lives may be being unintentionally crushed to death oneself. This is a suffering result, not a result that is neither painful nor pleasurable; the retribution summoned by neutral karma is not necessarily a result that is neither painful nor pleasurable. "Unintentional" means without the mind consciousness, but there is still the manas; the manas too is not deliberate and has no conscious intention, yet as long as there is action, there is karma and there are retributive results.

Karma is primarily the karma of the manas, corresponding to the manas; it is the process of the manas's mental actions and creations. The manas's mental creations sometimes require the cooperation of the six consciousnesses, and sometimes the six consciousnesses cannot cooperate, with no participation of the six consciousnesses in the creation—yet these are all karmic formations and all have retributive results. If the manas does not wish to create karma, no karmic formation appears, and the six consciousnesses will not arise to create karma. Therefore it is said that the manas is the master of karma creation, and this is so for both wholesome and unwholesome karma.