What Is Innate Is the Experience of Manas

Altering the manas may perhaps require a single major incident to render it vastly different from before. If you doubt this, try it: after being severely burned by fire, you will surely never play with fire again. If you crash into a ditch while speeding, breaking a bone, you will never dare to speed again. This is the meaning behind "once bitten by a snake, ten years afraid of a rope."

After experiencing major events, some people develop sequelae; for instance, whenever others mention similar matters, their manas experiences psychological panic, fear, and trembling. There are also various other circumstances where the manas never wishes to face those people or events again. Some children, after being abused just once, carry the memory deeply engraved in their hearts, never willing to interact with that person again or even hear their name. Upon hearing the name, they feel psychological terror and unease.

When a child encounters something hot for the first time, they naturally withdraw; when encountering cold, they naturally shrink their neck and shiver all over. This is the manas' innate understanding of cold and heat, requiring no teaching. When an infant is struck for the first time, they also know to cry bitterly and feel pain; no one taught them this. Infants inherently know fullness and hunger, hence they cry and fuss when hungry. Moreover, crying and fussing are innate; no one taught them how to do so.

No one taught the infant that this sensation is pain, that they should cry at this moment, or how to cry in this way. When an infant is held and stroked by their parents for the first time, they feel great comfort. No one taught the infant that being held is comfortable, that being stroked is comfortable, that this is what comfort feels like, or how to express comfort. No one taught these things; the infant possesses them innately.

Subhuti was foremost among the Buddha's disciples in understanding emptiness. In a past life, he had realized the emptiness of all dharmas, so even in his mother's womb he knew it was emptiness, and at birth he also knew it was emptiness. All the property within his family's sphere of influence completely vanished into emptiness, and then the property all reappeared. This emptiness was realized by the manas.

Some matters require the combined operation of the six consciousnesses and the five aggregates to manifest. Since the five aggregates and six consciousnesses are new, learning and adaptation are necessary. The varying speeds at which individuals learn are caused by differences in the manas' experiences.

At the very beginning of learning Buddhism, everyone's consciousness is equally ignorant, yet differences soon become apparent. Some people study for a lifetime yet remain fixated on reciting a single Buddha's name or chanting sutras. Others, after just one month, seek out Chan (Zen) classics to study; after a year, they wish to engage in meditation and seek enlightenment—such was the case with me, for example. Why such a vast difference? The varying experiences of the manas, the differing lengths of time spent learning Buddhism—spanning even incalculable kalpas—result in enormous disparities in Buddhist practice.

The differences between individuals are precisely caused by differences in the manas. Whether acknowledged or not, this is fact. Does fact care whether you acknowledge it or not? Fact does not concern itself with who acknowledges or denies it; it never changes. Truth, even if not a single person in the Saha World acknowledges it, remains eternally truth. It does not cease to be truth simply because others deny it. Genuine Dharma, no matter who slanders it, remains Dharma. Truth remains truth.