The Unreliability of the Mind Consciousness

Question: I have heard people say that after enlightenment one may forget the content of the enlightenment. If one forgets it, then one no longer counts as an enlightened person, right? How can enlightenment be forgotten?

Answer: The theoretical knowledge learned by the mind consciousness can be forgotten; what the mind consciousness has understood and memorized can be forgotten; a parrot's mimicry can be forgotten—once forgotten, it cannot be recalled. But enlightenment is the realization of wisdom within one's own mind; it is wisdom developed simultaneously by the manas and the mind consciousness, not obtained from anywhere else. Therefore the question of remembering and forgetting does not arise at all.

Recollection and forgetting are functions of the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness is dependent in nature (paratantra), arising and ceasing, subject to change. When the conditions are incomplete, the mind consciousness weakens and disappears. For example, if the brain has a pathological change, or one is stimulated, or the mind suffers a shock, or one grows old and the brain atrophies, the functions of the mind consciousness weaken and cannot operate normally, and one can no longer recall many people, events, principles, and things from the past—this is called forgetting. And when the mind consciousness disappears, one certainly cannot recall anyone or anything from the past. For instance, when one is asleep, unconscious, dead, or after conception, the mind consciousness has vanished, and the people and events one experienced are temporarily or permanently erased. In the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava), although there is a faint mind consciousness, its functions are limited and controlled by karmic force, and it can exercise no autonomy whatsoever.

If only the mind consciousness awakens to and understands certain principles while the manas has not awakened, there is truly no guarantee at all: the moment the mind consciousness disappears, everything is forgotten completely. Because the mind consciousness arises from conditions and changes extremely fast—under some influence it changes at a moment's notice, turns hostile in an instant, and forgets things so they cannot be recalled; in the space of a doze, the mind becomes a blank. Therefore, if one has not gone through the arduous process of investigating Chan, has never truly investigated, yet fantasizes about reaching heaven in a single step by letting the mind consciousness directly know the rough result, without conditioning the manas, then this result vanishes in an instant and yields almost no benefit of merit.

Without passing through the concrete stages of cultivating the path, without painstakingly investigating Chan, the manas receives no conditioning; one can only rely on the mind consciousness's reasoning, imagination, conjecture, and speculation—there is not a shred of direct perception (pratyakṣa); it is all erroneous cognition (non-valid cognition). The content of such speculation, of course, may be forgotten at any time and fail to function; it cannot guide bodily, verbal, and mental actions, cannot become an uninterrupted, continuous state of mind, and cannot even last a few minutes—its demise is only a matter of time.

But through the arduous process of investigating Chan, with the manas participating in it, awakening to the true mind and self-nature is a state of wisdom of direct perception; meditative concentration (samādhi) appears, and it becomes an uninterrupted seeing of the path, with bodily, verbal, and mental actions purified. In that case, even if the mind consciousness wants to forget, it cannot; even if it wants to lose it, it cannot lose it; even if it wants to regress, it cannot regress—because this matter is governed by the manas. Once the manas has awakened, the mind consciousness must accord with the manas and obey the manas's direction and command; even if it forgets, it cannot help but recall it. In fact, it does not matter at all whether the mind consciousness wants to remember or not; even if the mind consciousness ceases, it is fine—the manas has awakened, and so it is awakened forever. Whether asleep, unconscious, dead, or in the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava), one is awakened, and one will conceive into the next life in the identity of an awakened one, reaping the wholesome fruit of realization.

In studying and practicing Buddhism, relying solely on the mind consciousness incurs great loss. To rely on the arising-ceasing, mutable, impermanent mind consciousness to resolve the great matter of birth and death shows one has absolutely not thought through what practice really is. One eats one's own food and one's own hunger is satisfied; if one always relies on external conditions, those conditions will cease—one cannot keep relying on them until immeasurable kalpas have passed. Therefore a wise person must not place the weight on the mind consciousness, which is constantly arising, ceasing, and changing and offers no guarantee. The same is true of anything in the world or beyond the world. To summarize once more: any fruit realized by the mind consciousness is a fruit made of paper—paper is the easiest thing to rot and decay.