There is a great difference between the seeing-awareness of the mind consciousness and the seeing-awareness of the manas.

Disciple Weishi's experience of recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti): Tonight I had planned to recite the Buddha's name 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 daily practices 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 clearly and distinctly.

3. I could still hear the noises at home, but they 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 did I refuse to stop. There was joy in my heart.

4. In the final period, I felt that every word of the recitation carried power. After 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 one. I felt that every word carried power.

Assessment: This is the recitation becoming drawn out and lingering—it is the flavor of meditative concentration (samādhi), also called Dharma joy. The joy-contemplation factor (joy as a factor of enlightenment) has appeared; this is the effect of the Buddha's power blessing. Once the mind settles down, the four great elements of the physical body and the magnetic field become harmonized, one feels comfortable, and joy arises; the mind immerses itself in it and is reluctant to leave the current comfortable state. It seems a bit like greed, 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 bland, ordinary, with ignorance and afflictions undiminished. But when the seeing and perceiving of the manas predominates, the feeling differs from the ordinary—sometimes vastly different, perhaps even completely opposite. Therefore, at the moment 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 a 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 clock is deafening and resounds through the heart; even the sound of breathing and the heartbeat seem very loud, and the sound of reciting the Buddha's name is even more likely to linger in the ears without cease. If one continues to contemplate further, one discovers that the sense objects will undergo a series of changes, the mind-state will change accordingly, and after that one can see the Path. Although the sense objects seen with or without concentration are one and the same, the resulting experience 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, strike while the iron is hot and continue reciting to deepen the skill of recitation. Do not think about other daily practices; one must be clear about which is more important and be clear in mind about what the goal is. Do not perform practices that merely go through the motions.

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

Reciting the Buddha's name or sutras very quickly is also a form 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 it; the manas can almost play it automatically. When you can recite sutras and mantras from memory, you should learn to recite with mental intention—that is, reciting with the manas, letting the sutra text and mantra flow through the mind without language, characters, 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 seen very clearly: what kind of thing is "the mind consciousness attaining the fruit, the mind consciousness seeing the true 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 real cultivation—anyone with wisdom can see it at a glance.