The Effects of Hypnosis

The obstructions of the five hindrances (greed/desire, ill will, lethargy, restlessness and remorse, and doubt) obstruct the arising of the first dhyāna meditation. These are the obstructions to meditative concentration caused by the five hindrance mental knots of the manas. Once the manas's mental knots are untied, the obstructions are removed and meditative concentration arises.

Mental knots can be untied through hypnosis. During hypnosis, there is no obstruction from the mind consciousness, so the manas can face itself and articulate its own mental knots. Then, under the guidance of the hypnotist, the knots are untied through confession and other means, and the mind immediately relaxes, as if a thousand-pound burden had been lifted.

In daily life, the mind consciousness cares about saving face and refuses to face itself, obstructing the manas from openly revealing its inner knots, so the knots cannot be untied. The manas, however, is straightforward and does not care about face—it says whatever there is. If it trusts the hypnotist, it can be subdued, thereby changing itself, eliminating karmic seeds and karmic conditions, and resolving problems. Some people have many mental knots yet love face; they cannot get past the mind consciousness, which blocks others from peering into what lies within the manas. For them, only hypnosis can resolve the problems deep within their minds. Therefore, superficial confession is the confession of the mind consciousness; if the manas has not confessed, the karmic seeds do not disappear. Only when the manas becomes aware of it and confesses do the karmic seeds disappear.

If the ignorances of the manas are resolved one by one, the path to buddhahood will be traveled quickly. Then there would be no need to read so many Buddhist sutras or laboriously memorize the Tripiṭaka and its twelve divisions. Sitting right here, one could untie the knots in the mind, gradually break through ignorance, quickly attain buddhahood, manifest supernatural powers, and strengthen spiritual power.

To cure an illness, one must treat its root, and this root is the manas—the root of wisdom and the root of goodness are both the manas. Some children can be seen from an early age to possess roots of goodness and merit. Does this refer to what the mind consciousness possesses or what the manas possesses? Being born that way, it is not possessed by the mind consciousness but by the manas—carried over from what was cultivated through habituation in previous lives, not by the mind consciousness. Some children can sit cross-legged in meditation at only a few years old—these are habits the manas brought from past lives. A small child who can play the qin and compose scores is also showing the functioning of the manas's power of wisdom. Some people are born magnanimous, with a vast capacity for tolerance—this too was brought over from the manas's habituation in previous lives.