What Do Different Behaviors When Lying Indicate?

Question: Some people blush when they lie, while others lie as if nothing had happened, very naturally. Why is there this difference? What causes the blushing? And why do some people's faces neither blush, nor turn pale, nor turn white? 

Answer: Blushing is the doing of the manas. The manas has a sense of shame and remorse; it knows that lying is bad, and it is out of inner shame that one blushes. For those who do not blush, the mind consciousness may lie deliberately or may lie unintentionally, but in either case the manas has made lying a habit and drives the mind consciousness to do so. Or perhaps neither of the two consciousnesses is awakened, or perhaps only the mind consciousness is awakened and knows it is bad, while the manas still does not know it is bad—it lacks the power of introspection (pratyavekṣā-bala) and lacks self-validating cognition (svasaṃvedana), and therefore has no sense of shame and remorse. The mental factor of shame and remorse (hrī-apatrāpya) is a wholesome mental factor. In a person without cultivation, either the mind consciousness lacks shame and remorse, or the manas lacks shame and remorse, or both consciousnesses lack the mental factor of shame and remorse—all of these are unwholesome. A person who has the mental factor of shame and remorse can gradually correct errors and bad habits; a person without the mental factor of shame and remorse cannot correct bad habits, and for the time being we should not expect such a person to change his own bad habitual tendencies. Bad habitual tendencies and afflictions are directed and dominated by the manas in their creation—sometimes instigated by the mind consciousness, sometimes done by the manas having influenced and perfumed the mind consciousness. And changing bad habits must certainly be led by the manas. For the manas to change bad habits, it must first recognize its own bad habits, knowing that it is wrong and that having bad habits is not good. And knowing that one is wrong and that it is not good is precisely the function of the manas's self-validating cognition (svasaṃvedana).