The awareness of the mind consciousness and the awareness of the manas are vastly different.

Disciple Weishi's experience of recollecting the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti): Tonight I had planned to recollect the Buddha for one hour, but ended up reciting for nearly three hours and was reluctant to stop. In the end, feeling that I still had other practice assignments unfinished, I forced myself to stop. Here is a report of my experience.

1. Reciting the Buddha's name slowly makes it easier to gather the mind.

2. At the beginning, I imagined myself reciting the Buddha's name together with countless sentient beings—sometimes reciting together, sometimes I recited first. Later, I could no longer hear the other recitation sounds, and I heard my own recitation of the Buddha's name clearly and distinctly.

3. I could still hear the noise in the house, but it did not occupy my mind. The various thoughts that usually disturb me all felt very weak this time; as soon as a thought arose, I cast it aside. Only the sound of reciting the Buddha's name was something I was reluctant to stop. There was joy in my heart.

4. In the final period, I felt that every word of the recitation carried power. When reciting one word, my ears could hear many echoes, and I would wait until the echo of that word faded away before reciting the next word. Every word felt powerful.

Assessment: This is the recitation of the Buddha's name becoming somewhat "drawn out and lingering"—it is the flavor of meditative concentration (samādhi), also called dharma joy. The joy enlightenment-factor has appeared; this is the effect of the Buddha's power blessing. Once the mind settles down, the four great elements of the material body and the magnetic field become harmonized, one feels comfortable, and joy arises. The mind immerses itself in it, reluctant to leave the current comfortable state. It seems a bit greedy, but the more one craves the Buddha's Dharma, the better the effect of cultivation, and the faster meditative absorption (samādhi) will appear.

When there is power of meditative concentration, one feels that every word of the recitation carries power—this is mostly the feeling of the manas. When there is no power of concentration, the feeling is bland—this is mostly the feeling of the mind consciousness. It can be seen that what the manas and the mind consciousness each see and perceive is different. Usually it is the seeing and perceiving of the mind consciousness that predominates, and the feeling is flat, ordinary, and mundane, with ignorance and afflictions undiminished. But when the seeing and perceiving of the manas predominates, the feeling is different from the ordinary—perhaps greatly different, perhaps even completely opposite. Therefore, at the time of seeing the Path, it is certainly the manas that sees the Path; the seeing and perceiving of the manas is the standard, and the mind consciousness follows along.

When there is no power of concentration, whether listening to the sound of rain, the ticking of an alarm clock, or the sound of reciting the Buddha's name, everything feels bland, with no ripples or impact in the mind. But when the power of concentration is very strong, listening to the rain or the alarm clock is deafening and resounds through the heart; even the sounds of breathing and heartbeat seem very loud, and the sound of reciting the Buddha's name is even more likely to linger unceasingly in the ears. If one continues to contemplate further, one will discover that the sense-object realm undergoes a series of changes, and the mind-state changes along with it; after that, one can see the Path. Although the sense-object realm seen with or without concentration is one and the same, the resulting perception is vastly different—this is because wisdom has arisen in the manas and the mind consciousness.

When the effect of reciting the Buddha's name is very good, one should strike while the iron is hot and continue reciting to deepen the skill of recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti). Do not think about other practice assignments; one must be clear about which is more important, and be clear in one's mind about what the goal is. Do not perform practice assignments as mere formalities.

Disciple Ru Chun said: I feel that when reciting the Śūraṅgama Mantra very quickly, I also enter a state of complete self-oblivion, feeling that only two lips remain, opening and closing. A slight glance with the eyes is enough—without waiting for the mind consciousness to see the characters clearly, the mouth has already run through that line of text. That feeling is also very interesting.

Reciting the Buddha's name or sutras very quickly is also a kind of concentration, because there is no time for scattered and random thoughts, but it consumes much qi and cannot be sustained for long. This situation occurs because the mantra has already become very familiar, almost memorized, so it does not require much use of the mind consciousness to read; the manas can almost play it back automatically. When one can recite sutras and mantras from memory, one should learn to recite mentally—that is, have the manas recite, with the sutra text and mantra flowing through the mind without language, words, or sound, reciting silently without a trace. Entering concentration will then be very fast and very deep.

Synthesizing everyone's cultivation experiences, it can be clearly seen: what is this thing called "the mind consciousness attaining the fruits" and "the mind consciousness seeing the mind"? It is nothing at all—just a trick to fool people. Whether the person who staged this show has meditative concentration, whether they have any cultivation—a person with wisdom can tell at a glance.