The Effect of Cultivation Depends on the Degree to Which the Manas Has Been Perfumed by Conditioning

Question: If one has heard a certain view or learned something—such as the five aggregates being illusory, non-self, impermanent, and empty—and the mind has genuinely changed in daily life, whether in adjusting the general direction of one's work and life, or in becoming less attached to things one previously craved, feeling much fainter—does this count as a transformation of the manas? 

Answer: This is a change occurring at the stage of cultivating the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment. When cultivation has become fairly effective and the mind is on the Noble Eightfold Path, having subdued some coarse afflictions of craving, the mind begins to transform. When the body, mind, and world transform, it is because the manas has been perfumed and thereby changed. That is to say, at any stage of cultivation, as long as the manas is being perfumed, cultivation shows results. The thirty-seven aids to enlightenment must also be cultivated all the way to the manas; otherwise it is false cultivation, and one has not yet gotten onto the path. However, this kind of transformation of body and mind is not yet sufficient to bring about a complete metamorphosis, to the point of being able to eliminate the self-view. That is why many people who claim to have eliminated the self-view show little improvement or change in body and mind after doing so—the bones have not changed, so the ordinary person's embryo cannot be exchanged for a sage's embryo.