The Acuity of the Manas

A mosquito suddenly lands on your face, and you unconsciously slap your face; only afterward do you realize that a mosquito had landed on your face and that you were swatting it. How could you perform an action regarding something you were unaware of? Who did it?

When a mosquito lands on the face, it is extremely light, and the mind consciousness generally cannot detect it. Yet even without detecting it, you still swatted the mosquito—of course this was entirely directed by the manas. It can be seen that no matter how subtle a sense-object of the six dusts may be, the manas can always first cognize it; for sense-objects that concern one's own safety, it immediately makes a decision and handles the matter, whereupon the six consciousnesses arise to deal with the situation endangering oneself. Thus, even without the assistance of the mind consciousness in cognizing and judging, the manas can still discriminate between major and minor sense-objects, can distinguish what benefits and what harms the five-aggregate body, and can take action swiftly—its wisdom is not low. When the manas cognizes sense-objects, it can do so without the mind consciousness, but when it comes to processing sense-objects, it absolutely cannot do without the mind consciousness; the manas cannot handle anything and must have the assistance of the mind consciousness. Therefore, in many cases, the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the mind consciousness or of the six consciousnesses precisely reflect the manas's thoughts and moral cultivation, and reflect the mental activities of the manas.

When the mind consciousness and body consciousness deal with a mosquito bite, sometimes they slap, sometimes scratch the itch, sometimes touch, sometimes pick—various actions all differ. Why do they choose different actions? All of this is directed and carried out under the manas's authority. The manas has the capacity to judge and choose regarding contact-dust (sparśa-viṣaya); it can understand contact-dust in all kinds of situations, and because the situations differ, the choices differ, and the actions of the mind consciousness and body consciousness differ accordingly.