The Benefits of Deliberating with the Manas

Question: I seem to understand how to use the manas to deliberate; it is a mental activity that cannot involve thinking—once I think, the mind consciousness gets involved, and once the mind consciousness is involved, that state becomes less deep and subtle. Is that so? This state lasts only a very short time. When the deliberation reaches a point where the problem gets stuck, I use the mind consciousness to think, and immediately the state is no longer so deep and subtle. Also, when meditating, once I apply initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra) to the state of the body, a feeling arises that this physical body does not exist—there is only a body constituted of slight sensations and the mind consciousness, very unreal. Suddenly a thought arose: the things one normally sees are merely images and pictures, manifested and projected. With this feeling, after emerging from meditation I look around and everything still seems so real.

Answer: You can now probably distinguish whether it is the mind consciousness thinking or the manas deliberating during meditation, and the method you are using is also correct; it is just that your skill is not yet proficient and effortless, so you need to take it slowly and gradually deepen your foundation. When contemplating the Dharma in stillness, it is indeed true that when the manas is employed, the mind is very deep and subtle, whereas when the mind consciousness is used, it is somewhat superficial, as if separated by a layer—not deep or penetrating enough.

When observing the physical body during meditation with fairly strong focus, your meditative concentration will improve; as the concentration deepens, the initial application and sustained examination actually become slight, the perception of the physical body disappears, and the mind becomes empty. Meditative concentration can make the mind meticulous and precise; it often enables one to observe things that cannot be observed in ordinary times, to discover the truth of things, and thereby to penetrate and awaken to the truth. So when, in meditation, you feel that some things you see seem like images and are no longer so real, this is a correct view. On the basis of this correct view, if you further refine your practice to proficiency, there is hope for direct realization.

After direct realization, when you emerge from meditation you will no longer take illusory dharmas to be real. Before direct realization, correct view is merely correct view and cannot change anything. But correct view, after all, involves some cognition that has departed from the false and tends toward discovering the truth of things. If you maintain and deepen this state of practice, you will be better able to see through the extreme illusoriness and unreality of all kinds of principles and affairs; when the causes, conditions, and season are complete, it becomes possible to realize emptiness. Therefore, the realization of all dharmas is accomplished within profound meditative concentration (dhyāna); even amid activity, there is meditative concentration, and such concentration stems from the dhyāna skill of sitting meditation—it is the extension and continuation of concentration in stillness.