Is the manas's continual scrutiny and deliberation inside the brain, or in the void outside the brain?

If the manas were to engage in continual scrutiny and deliberation outside the brain, it would have nothing to do with oneself; and if the manas could exist in empty space, whose manas would that be? Who would execute the results of its deliberation? How could the faculties and sense-objects come into contact to give rise to the six consciousnesses, so as to feed back the manas's deliberation? Therefore it is said that the manas cannot possibly be in the empty space outside the brain. What lies outside the brain? Is it necessarily empty space? The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says: 虚空生汝心内，如片云点太清里。This mind of course refers to the tathāgatagarbha, but does the manas also have to follow the tathāgatagarbha in discerning empty space? Then is empty space inside or outside the manas? Or is the manas inside or outside empty space? The manas silently encompasses and discerns all dharmas, and is not confined or obstructed within the physical body; the dharmas of the ten directions and the three times can all be discerned through the tathāgatagarbha. From this, how large is our mind, after all? It encompasses the vast void.

The manas is also a conscious mind. The conscious mind does not operate inside, outside, or in between the physical body, because the conscious mind is formless and without appearance; one cannot say that the conscious mind is inside the physical body or outside it. And the manas, this conscious mind, can govern all dharmas both inside and outside the physical body, operating together with the tathāgatagarbha. Wherever the tathāgatagarbha is, the manas is certain to follow; the tathāgatagarbha cannot operate any dharma on its own, except for the objective realm in itself (the essential object). Where the manas is absent, there is no phenomenon of life. If the manas were absent from the brain, not only would the brain cease to function, the entire physical body would cease to function, and life would no longer exist. The dharmas that the five-aggregate body can come into contact with are all operated by the tathāgatagarbha, and all have the manas following along; the manas can discern them all by relying on the tathāgatagarbha. And the dharmas that the five-aggregate body cannot come into contact with are also operated by the tathāgatagarbha, and also have the manas following along; the manas can likewise discern these dharmas.

For example, if someone attains samādhi through recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti) and truly aspires to be reborn in the land of bliss (Sukhāvatī), then a lotus flower will appear for him in the lotus pond of the land of bliss. This lotus is not merely manifested by his tathāgatagarbha; rather, it is built by the tathāgatagarbha in the lotus pond of the land of bliss, following the manas that has made the vow of rebirth there. So does the manas operate inside the brain or outside the brain? At this time, the manas is neither apart from the brain nor apart from the physical body, and at the same time is in the land of bliss. If the manas could only operate inside the brain, then what is to be said of the lotus in the land of bliss? To whom does it belong? The mind-made bodies (manomaya-kāya) of all the great bodhisattvas are all governed by a single manas; is the manas of each emanated body inside the physical body or outside it?

Consider another example: when the eye consciousness sees ten people in front of it, upon which person's physical appearance does the eye consciousness actually make contact? Since it sees ten people simultaneously, the eye consciousness has made contact with the physical appearances of all ten people at the same time; it is not the case that it can only contact one person and not contact the others simultaneously. The manas is likewise: relying on the tathāgatagarbha, it can simultaneously contact all the dharmas held and sustained by the tathāgatagarbha, without distinguishing inside, outside, or in between. Inside and outside the supreme faculty (rūpa-prasāda) there are the same dharmas; inside and outside the brain there are the same dharmas; the manas can take them all as objects and can deliberate upon them all. But the actual situation is that sentient beings who possess a supreme faculty, no matter where they go, cannot escape their own supreme faculty; even if they run to the edge of the sky, they still cannot get out of the supreme faculty. The manas's continual scrutiny and deliberation is upon all dharmas: it deliberates not only upon the dharmas within the supreme faculty, but also upon the dharmas outside the supreme faculty. He not only grasps at the body, but also grasps at dharmas—and it is this grasping that is hardest to deal with. The grasping attachments of the mundane world of the three realms—we are still unable to free ourselves from them even now; all our thinking is constrained, because our insight is limited.