The Mental Factor of Volition (cetanā) of the Manas Determines the Discernment of the Eye Consciousness and the Mind Consciousness

When the eye consciousness sees form, it sees the manifesting forms (rūpa): blue, yellow, red, and white; light and darkness; clouds and mist, fog and haze, and space. Light is a kind of material substance, composed of the four great elements, arising and ceasing and changing moment by moment; it is false and unreal.

The eye consciousness itself possesses the mental factor of volition (cetanā). After receiving the form sense-object, it knows the form sense-object, and then the mental factor of volition arises, deciding to act—whether to avoid it or to look a while longer. The eye consciousness works in close cooperation with the manas and the mind consciousness; without the manas's mental engagement (manaskāra) and the mental factor of volition, there would be no arising of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, nor their discernment, and there would be no operation of the five universal mental factors of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness. When the eye consciousness sees form, the seventh consciousness cannot see form; when the mind consciousness analyzes, infers, and judges, the seventh consciousness cannot infer or analyze. A consciousness is called a consciousness because it has the nature of discriminating, discerning, and recognizing; otherwise it would not be called a consciousness. All seven consciousnesses have the nature of discernment, discrimination, and recognition.

Where there is wisdom there is the power of judgment; where there is deliberation (manana) there is a result of that deliberation. The manas certainly has the power of judgment, for deliberation itself is judgment. Because the manas is the consciousness that takes charge, governing the operation of the entire five-aggregate body, without the power of judgment it could not govern the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the five-aggregate body, and it could not be the consciousness that takes charge. Then who would take charge? The manas's power of judgment is indispensable; it is only a matter of whether the power of judgment is great or small, and whether it is accurate or not.

There are such differences in the manas's judgment: in which dharmas the manas has a greater power of judgment, and in which dharmas a smaller one; when its judgment is great and accurate, and when it is small and not quite accurate; in what circumstances it relies on the discernment of the six consciousnesses to make judgments, and in what circumstances it can make judgments without relying on the discernment of the six consciousnesses. In dharmas that the manas discerns clearly, its power of judgment is great, because clear discernment makes judgment easy, enabling quick and accurate judgment; if the manas does not discern clearly, it cannot judge, or cannot judge quickly and accurately. Regarding dharmas it cannot understand, the manas is either hesitant and indecisive or inaccurate in judgment, and thus the decisions made by the manas are blind and mistaken. When the manas's choices are mistaken, the six consciousnesses' execution will also be mistaken.

But we can observe: in worldly affairs, are sentient beings' choices all mistaken and blind? Clearly not. There are many times when they are correct and without error; indeed, most of the time they should be reasonable and appropriate. This shows that the manas does have the power of judgment, and its power of judgment is not small. There do exist cases where it cannot judge, cases of hesitation and indecision, and even more so cases of mistaken judgment. This is related to the manas's own wisdom and to its power of determination (adhimokṣa).

In the manas's judgment, on the one hand it judges directly on the basis of the dharmas themselves. The more familiar the dharma is to the manas, and the more experience it has had with it, the more easily the manas makes judgments on its own; the more momentous and urgent the dharma, the more easily it makes a swift judgment on its own, and then makes a choice, after which the six consciousnesses arise to carry it out. If the manas cannot gain determination (adhimokṣa) regarding the state-dharmas it encounters, it will be unable to make quick and accurate judgments. On the other hand, the manas's discernment is coarse; to discern in detail, it must rely on the discernment of the six consciousnesses, relying on the mind consciousness's thinking, analysis, study, inference, and judgment, and then, based on the information transmitted by the six consciousnesses, it makes its own independent deliberation and judgment, and the six consciousnesses arise to execute it. If the manas cannot gain determination regarding the content discerned by the six consciousnesses, cannot gain determination regarding the content that the mind consciousness has thought through, analyzed, understood, and judged, then it also cannot make judgments and choices—or its judgments and choices are mistaken, and the six consciousnesses then execute them mistakenly.