The Six Consciousnesses Are the Subordinates and Advisors of the Manas

When each commander's manas receives intelligence information, does he still need to think, analyze, and deliberate on it himself? Does he still need to study and process it? Does he still need to make strategic and tactical arrangements and deployments? Even if he fully agrees with the opinions and suggestions of the six consciousnesses serving as his staff, must he not still go through his own thinking, study, analysis, and judgment, engaging in his own mental activity, before he can finally agree and make a decision? Should not the staff subordinates and the commander each have their own mental activities, their own wisdom and stratagems, their own methods, their own experience, and so on? It is the same with the manas and the six consciousnesses.

Outsiders can only see the investigative role played by the staff subordinates, but cannot see the commander's process of thinking over and processing the intelligence before making a decision. So they say that all these decisions and all the battle commands are the credit of the staff subordinates—is such a statement reasonable and fair?

Ninety-nine percent of us, indeed even more than that, can only see the work achievements of the subordinates and are completely unable to see the commander's hard work. Because they have no access to the commander and cannot see the process of the commander's work and decision-making, they believe that all the work is accomplished by the staff subordinates, and that the commander merely nods in agreement and makes the decision.

Buddhist practitioners often deny those dharmas that they themselves do not know and have not realized; what they cannot see, they say does not exist. They trust only themselves, yet refuse to believe in the insufficiency of their own wisdom. This is a universal phenomenon, and it is precisely in this way that slander of the Dharma comes about.

Six-consciousness theorists are found everywhere in the Sahā world. Because they cannot realize the eighth consciousness, cannot realize the manas, and cannot observe the functions and roles of these two transformative consciousnesses (parināma), they simply deny them.

There are also some people who, although they believe in the existence of the eighth consciousness, or have slightly realized the eighth consciousness, cannot realize the manas and cannot observe its operation in the present moment, and so they deny the various functions and roles of the manas, becoming seven-consciousness theorists. This is also very problematic.