The Nimble Nature of the Manas

In the middle of the night while asleep, the six consciousnesses have ceased. A fire breaks out in the room, and the manas wants to flee—what happens? When the manas encounters such an urgent, critical matter, it is certainly eager to wake up, so that the mind consciousness can discern the fire, and then flee together with the five sense consciousnesses. As soon as the manas becomes anxious, the solitary mental consciousness appears first. When the solitary mental consciousness cannot discern clearly, it transforms into the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses (pañcavijñāna-sahagata-manovijñāna); the five sense consciousnesses then arise accordingly, and thus one wakes up. As soon as the mind consciousness discerns that the situation is urgent, it decides to flee; the manas agrees, and as the decision-maker, makes the five-aggregate body run, so the physical body runs out the door.

The mind consciousness arises together with the nose consciousness; because the smell of smoke is strong, the nose consciousness arises before the other consciousnesses. Then the eye consciousness, body consciousness, ear consciousness, and tongue consciousness appear. The five sense consciousnesses arise in sequence: whichever sense object is most prominent, the corresponding consciousness arises first. If the firelight is bright, the eye consciousness arises first; if the room is too hot, the body consciousness arises first; if the sound of the fire and the shouting are loud, the ear consciousness arises first.

At a moment of crisis, the body's movements are extremely fast; the mind consciousness has no time to think anything, yet one quickly dodges the danger. If, at a critical moment, one had to wait for the mind consciousness to discern and then deliberate, a person would probably come to harm. At such times, the function of the mind consciousness is simply to follow the manas's arrangement together with the five sense consciousnesses and act swiftly.