The Manas's Function as the Master Determines Its Wholesome or Unwholesome Nature

The manas silently embraces all dharmas, meaning that the manas corresponds to, accords with, merges with, and conditions all dharmas, including wholesome and unwholesome dharmas—this is quite easy to understand. If the manas did not correspond to wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, how could the mind consciousness correspond to them? If there are dharmas that the manas does not correspond to and does not condition, how could the mind consciousness correspond to them or succeed in conditioning them?

From the perspective of the manas's actual functions, if the manas had only an indeterminate (avyākṛta) nature, then indeterminate karma such as washing clothes and cooking would be decided by the manas as the sovereign, while doing good deeds and taking pleasure in helping others would not be decided by the manas, and neither would stealing, robbery, or false speech. That would mean the manas can exercise sovereignty and make decisions over only some dharmas, but not over others. Then what is it that causes the manas to be able to exercise sovereignty over only some dharmas and not over others? Are the other dharmas, over which the manas cannot exercise sovereignty, decided by the mind consciousness instead? Would the mind consciousness also become the sovereign consciousness? To split apart the manas and to split apart the dharmas—is there such a principle?

Take a good person: is it the manas that is good, the mind consciousness that is good, or both? If a person's goodness resides only in the mind consciousness and not in the manas, then after the mind consciousness ceases and only the manas remains, is this person still a good person at that moment? If the manas is not good, then at that moment he is not a good person. A good person, once asleep and without a mind consciousness, would no longer be a good person—so how do we account for the good deeds he has done? Isn't this matter very bizarre? It is simply inconceivable and can never be made to make sense.

According to this logic, after a good person dies and this life's mind consciousness vanishes forever, he would even less be a good person. Someone who did good all his life dies, yet no one acknowledges him as a good person—isn't that unjust? If he died for his country and for the people, his death would not even be glorious, because the glorious mind consciousness is gone, so no glorious title can be posthumously conferred on him, and no spiritual or material compensation can be given to his family. If, along with the disappearance of a good person's mind consciousness, all the good deeds and contributions made by that mind consciousness were to vanish with it—because the remaining manas is not good—then thereafter good people would probably fear death the most and would no longer be willing to make sacrifices easily. They might even fear sleep and coma, because once the mind consciousness ceases, the label and reputation of being a good person disappear, and after death they would not go to a wholesome destiny to enjoy blessings. Conversely, an evil person, once dead, is no longer an evil person and need not go to the three evil destinies—how profitable would doing evil be? Such things truly cannot be made to make sense. Therefore, the manas of a good person has a wholesome nature, the manas of an evil person has an unwholesome nature, or else the manas of both good and evil people possesses both wholesome and unwholesome natures, which together with the indeterminate nature makes three natures.

If only the mind consciousness has wholesome and unwholesome natures and the manas has none, then when a good person acts in a play, portraying an evil person and doing evil, is this actor at that moment a good person or an evil person? In work and in daily life, some people are especially skilled at disguise—one thing on the surface and another behind the scenes. On the surface they behave very well, like upright gentlemen, and their conduct compels praise; yet behind the scenes they scheme and plot to frame others. So is this person ultimately a good person or an evil person?

When sentient beings do good or commit evil, it is a time when the manifest and the hidden operate in tandem: the six consciousnesses are in the open, while the manas is behind the scenes in the dark. How do the two cooperate and connect so seamlessly? On the surface it is the six consciousnesses doing good and committing evil, but what is the manas doing? What mental activities is it engaged in? How is it operating? Does it exercise sovereignty over these wholesome and unwholesome matters, or does it leave it to the mind consciousness to decide and create wholesome and unwholesome karma? How does the manas cause the six consciousnesses to arise and operate? How does it cause the six consciousnesses to arise precisely upon the wholesome or unwholesome dharmas being engaged in? If these matters cannot be observed, how can one assert with certainty that the manas has no wholesome or unwholesome mental activities and no wholesome or unwholesome nature?