How Do Athletes Train the Manas? (Manas Training Section)

When athletes compete in a match, they are all exercising the skills and functions of the manas. For example, in various competitive sports—racing in speed, competing in technique, reaction, and strength—full concentration is required, with highly focused attention and a mind free of distracting thoughts. At such moments, for every movement, for every instant of responding to an opponent, is there still time to think with the mind consciousness? Not at all; otherwise, just as one begins to think about how to respond, the opponent's move has already been executed, and one would be defeated by the opponent in an instant. On the field, time is the most precious thing—time determines victory and defeat. If one uses the mind consciousness to deliberate on countermeasures, the opponent will not give you the chance to wait for your of the manas, leaving no room for the mind consciousness to function. Conditioned reflexes are the habits and tendencies of the manas, a mechanism formed by the manas through long-term practice and perfuming. The mind consciousness does not understand this and can do nothing about it; it can only obey and comply completely.

How does the manas form conditioned reflexes? It is the result of intense training in ordinary times; training until it becomes habit, as if it had become muscle memory—any movement or technique can be executed directly without passing through the brain. This means that it does not take the route of mind-consciousness deliberation; at such times the mind consciousness is not used for—but is there still time? It is like on a battlefield where the enemy's swords, spears, and halberds are pointed at you—could you still scratch your head and ponder countermeasures? The deliberation and analysis of the mind consciousness are only to be used after the match or the battle is over; they are useful when summarizing experience afterward. Even during training itself they are hardly needed; once you know how to train, just train according to the method. Only when training has become proficient and the technique has passed the test can one go participate in competitions. Competition relies on the techniques and skills developed through training, on the proficiency of the manas—not on lucky on-the-spot improvisation, thinking up countermeasures on the spot.

Then, during the tense process of responding, does the manas have mental activity? Of course it has mental activity, and extremely fast and silent at that. Not only do the five universal mental factors link together ring upon ring, the five particular mental factors also follow closely, appearing at all times. The most prominent are the concentration mental factor and the wisdom mental factor. Without concentration there is no focus; with the slightest distraction or stray thought, the movements become disordered, the opponent seizes the opening, and the match is lost. At such times the wisdom of the mind consciousness can hardly exert much force; it all depends on the wisdom of the manas. If the manas has no wisdom, one flails about in panic, unable to respond normally to various situations—then what would be the point of competing?

It is the same when we actually practice contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the Buddha-dharma: the mind consciousness positions the manas on the dharma being contemplated, carrying the knowing of the object of contemplation, settled on the dharma; everything else is the manas's direct perception observation. For example, when observing a flower, just fix your gaze on the flower and observe it—just look at it. There is no need to use the mind consciousness to analyze and imagine: what variety this flower is, where it was grown, its form and colors, whether it is beautiful, whether it will bloom again, whether it can still grow, what would happen if it were given to so-and-so, and so on. All these miscellaneous thoughts must be completely strangled and extinguished. Still less should one forcibly draw subjective conclusions based on learned theories, saying: this flower is subject to arising and ceasing, illusory, empty; it is manifested by the tathāgatagarbha; it uses the four or five great seeds; it was generated by relying on such-and-such conditions. You cannot even contemplate—how did you arrive at a conclusion? So many affairs—what benefit is there in them?

Just contemplate with the manas alone. Whatever there is, observe it. Do not imagine, infer, or analyze, until you have clearly observed the phenomena of arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of the object of contemplation, until the dharma before your eyes no longer has any reality, until meditative concentration (samādhi) appears—then you will have realized emptiness and no-self. So just how strong is the power of wisdom (prajñā-bala) of the manas at that point? Is it still that manas of inferior wisdom? With inferior wisdom, how could one carry out contemplative practice, how could one know the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of dharmas? How could one realize the Path? At this point, what mental factors the manas has and does not have—by now it should all be clear, shouldn't it?