Do Habitual Tendencies Have Seeds?

When a certain thing is done frequently and becomes habitual, one will later do it unconsciously upon encountering similar situations—this is called habit-energy (vāsanā). Habit-energy resides in the manas. When the manas has become habituated to doing something, its habit-energy will manifest; the mind consciousness is often unaware of the manas's habit-energy. Habit-energy is divided into good habit-energy and bad habit-energy. Bad habit-energy belongs to ignorance and afflictions. The manas has possessed ignorance and afflictions since beginningless kalpas—this is called beginningless ignorance (avidyā), and it has no seed. However, the manas did not have afflictive habit-energy before beginningless kalpas, because without the activities of a five-aggregate body, habit-energy could not be formed. Later, after the five-aggregate body came into existence, the manas used it to continually manifest ignorance and afflictions, thereby forming habit-energy; the ignorance and afflictions that were engaged in became seeds. Therefore, habit-energy has seeds, while beginningless ignorance has no seed.

As the five-aggregate body operates in the mundane world life after life, ignorance is continually increased and lessened, and thus the habit-energy of ignorance must be continually strengthened and weakened. Therefore, all the ignorance and afflictions to be severed in one's cultivation and study are primarily the severing of the manas's afflictions. Once the manas's afflictions are severed, the manas's afflictive habit-energy and the peripheral, branch-like afflictions of the six consciousnesses will vanish along with them. In actual practice, however, it is the mind consciousness that first subdues and severs afflictions, because the mind consciousness grasps principles quickly; once it understands the correct principles, it can cultivate and realize its own mind. The manas's afflictions are deep and heavy, and it grasps principles slowly, so correcting itself is very difficult. Therefore, if the manas is not subdued and its afflictions not severed, the mind consciousness's afflictions, once severed, will arise again depending on the manas. Cultivation means severing all the ignorance of the manas and increasing the manas's enlightenment. When ignorance is completely severed and enlightenment reaches its limit, the Buddha-way is accomplished.