The Cause of the World as Proclaimed by the World-Honored One in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

All the ignorance of sentient beings is beginningless and is called beginningless ignorance (avidyā); all of it existed before beginningless kalpas. Since this is so, with which mind-ground does beginningless ignorance primarily correspond? It corresponds to the seventh consciousness, the manas. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One taught that before the beginningless kalpas, when all was undifferentiated chaos, only the eighth consciousness and the manas existed; there was no world of the three realms, no world of the five aggregates, and no six consciousnesses. At that time all ignorance already existed; no kind of ignorance was generated later in life. Therefore it is said that all ignorance is the ignorance of the manas. This passage of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra explains the origin of the world; before this, there was no world. Because of ignorance, the manas reached outward in grasping, and thus the world was formed. When there was no world, there could be no body of the five aggregates and no six consciousnesses, for the body of the five aggregates must have a place of dwelling to rely upon. When the world arose, it also took countless kalpas of time.

Why is space the same? If there were different spaces—one space per world—then space would have boundaries, and if it had boundaries, it would not be space. This is the process by which the world of the five aggregates was originally formed. Before this, there was a state of chaos. Who was in chaos? The manas was in chaos, because at that time there was no universe, no space, no heaven and earth, no world—only two conscious minds. When the manas gave rise to thoughts and reached outward in grasping, it did so imperceptibly and very subtly. Then the eighth consciousness, in accord with the manas, gradually evolved space and the world, and later the world of the five aggregates.

Since there was no space and no world before the beginningless kalpas, did the eighth consciousness and the manas have concepts of time and space? Was there a manas here and a manas there? Do the eighth consciousness and the manas come and go? Can they move from one place to another? Since the eighth consciousness and the manas have no notions of time and space, we should then understand what the supernormal power of traveling at will (ṛddhi) is really about. We should also understand why rebirth in the lands of the Buddhas can be reached in an instant.