A Vijñānavāda Explanation of Taking a Thief as One's Father

Taking the thief as one's father — it is the manas that takes him as father. Which one is the thief? The functions and activities of the six consciousnesses are the thief. Which one is the father? The self and what belongs to the self are the father. The manas has not understood the arising-ceasing, impermanent, and mutable nature of the six consciousnesses, and thus takes the functions of the six consciousnesses as its own functions and activities, clinging to them without letting go, greedily grasping at them without end. What should be done? First, one must acknowledge that within the body there is an unborn and unceasing true mind that does not perish; then one should contemplate the nature of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self of the six consciousnesses and the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), their arising-ceasing mutability, and their unattainability; then contemplate the arising-ceasing, impermanent, and non-self nature of the six sense bases (ṣaḍāyatana) and the six sense objects. Only then can one extinguish the thief. When there is no thief in the mind, and the clinging and greedy attachment to the thief are severed, liberation is attained.