What Does Cultivation Actually Cultivate?

In the end, does cultivation mean killing off the mind consciousness, or killing off the manas? Killing off the mind consciousness is the cause, and killing off the manas is the result. Although killing off the manas is the ultimate goal, the starting point must still be the mind consciousness. The mind consciousness dies every night, and the mind consciousness of a person in a vegetative state is more or less dead all the time, yet such people still cannot avoid the three evil destinies in future lives, let alone the cycle of rebirth through the six destinies. What does this show? It shows that the great authority over birth and death is held in the hands of the manas. Therefore, cultivation must be carried out at the manas: we must understand the manas clearly, subdue the manas, and eliminate the ignorance of the manas. How exactly should one go about extinguishing the ignorance of the manas? Ignorance gives rise to all the afflictive mental factors (caittas). So whose mental factors are the afflictive mental factors mainly? The ignorance of the manas leads to the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death—which afflictive mental factor does the manas not possess? If the manas did not possess all the afflictive mental factors, would not cultivation then be easy and pleasant?

Some people insist that the manas is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. If that were so, would we still need to cultivate? What we cultivate is the elimination of ignorance and unwholesome dharmas, and the fulfillment of wholesome dharmas. If the manas possessed only dharmas that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, sentient beings would have no need to cultivate. The tathāgatagarbha is neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and so the tathāgatagarbha never cultivates and has no need whatsoever to cultivate. What would it cultivate, and what would He need to correct? He has no ignorance, no evil, and nothing deviant. If the tathāgatagarbha were to engage in cultivation, it would probably go astray and become crooked. Both wholesomeness and unwholesomeness are ignorance; where there is ignorance, there must be the wholesome and the unwholesome. The tathāgatagarbha has no ignorance, and so He neither creates wholesome karma nor unwholesome karma; He responds according to conditions without any deliberate mental effort. Only with ignorance is there a mind of anger, and only then does one give rise to the intention to create the karma of killing; only with ignorance is there foolish delusion, and only then does one create the karma of killing.