The Manas Utilizes the Six Consciousnesses to Create All Bodily, Verbal, and Mental Actions

All information from the six consciousnesses is transmitted to the manas moment by moment, and the manas knows moment by moment the information discerned by the six consciousnesses, as well as the mental activities of the six consciousnesses. That is why the manas can, based on the information from the six consciousnesses, give rise to its own mental activities moment by moment, and then moment by moment act as the master. The six consciousnesses are the tools used by the manas; if the six consciousnesses can no longer function, then no matter how the manas reacts, it cannot be expressed—no matter how anxious it gets, it is useless. It is like a person who wants to chop down a big tree, but the knife in his hand is broken and unusable; he can only stand by watching, unable to do anything.

When a person uses a knife to chop a tree and the tree is chopped down, is this something the person did or something the knife did? Of course it was the person who chopped down the tree; the person used the knife to fell it, so both the credit and the fault should be attributed to the person. By the same token, the manas uses the six consciousnesses to carry out all bodily, verbal, and mental actions, so both its merit and its fault should be attributed to the manas; the six consciousnesses are merely being directed. However, if the six consciousnesses offer advice and strategies to the manas, and the manas acts after heeding them, then the six consciousnesses also have a share in it.