The Mental Activities of the Manas

When you fall asleep at midnight and the body experiences the contact of cold, the body consciousness and mind consciousness then arise to resolve the problem of the cold. When you fall asleep at midnight and the body experiences the contact of pain, the body consciousness and mind consciousness then arise to feel the painful contact and deal with it. The question is: why must the mind consciousness arise? If the manas already knows whether it is cold or hot, or painful, why must the mind consciousness still arise—what exactly is the reason? It is because the manas is unable to personally handle and resolve the problem.

In the absence of the six consciousnesses, those mental activities are all mental activities of the manas; when the six consciousnesses are extremely weak, those mental activities are also almost entirely the mental activities of the manas. Observe the state of a person in a persistent vegetative state: does such a person feel pain? Would they be willing to remain in a vegetative state? Would they be willing to keep lying in bed? When eating, are they willing to eat? What reactions do they show upon seeing their closest loved ones? All of these can demonstrate the mental activities and feelings of the manas.

During a coma, is the manas willing to be in a coma, and what manifestations are there? From these manifestations, one can observe the mental activities of the manas. If, during a coma, the manas experienced neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā), then the manas should be indifferent, just like the tathāgatagarbha, and simply continue in the coma. Yet as soon as the body improves slightly, the manas will prompt the six consciousnesses to arise and prompt the functions of the five aggregates to appear. This shows that the manas is unwilling to remain in a coma, is not resigned to being in a coma. Why is it unwilling, not resigned, and averse to being in a coma? First, being in a coma does not feel good; second, without the activity of the five aggregates there is nothing one can do, and one feels bored—and boredom is also a suffering feeling. If being in a coma felt comfortable, the manas would of course maintain the comatose state. When sitting in meditation and entering samādhi, if one is unwilling to emerge from samādhi, does this not show that the manas finds it comfortable? Of course, if the mind consciousness is relatively clear-headed and also finds meditative concentration comfortable, it will become attached to sitting quietly and be unwilling to rise from the seat.