Spiritual Practice Is the Purification of the Mind

The manifestation of the exclusively mental realm occurs because the mental faculty clings to and attends to mental objects, generating thoughts. Then, the Tathagatagarbha gives rise to the independent consciousness to fulfill the mental faculty's instructions and realize its thoughts and intentions. Whatever mental object the mental faculty attends to, the independent consciousness arises upon that object and subsequently operates according to the mental faculty's will. Only after a thought arises in consciousness is there awareness. What is known is a mental object, similar to information, unrelated to the five sense objects. It might be an idea, a recollection, an aspiration for the future, or an analysis, judgment, and consideration of a problem. If the mental faculty wants to recall something, consciousness remembers past people and events; if the mental faculty wants to know the meaning of a statement, consciousness contemplates and analyzes that statement; if the mental faculty needs to consider the next day's itinerary, consciousness thinks about the arrangements for the next day's schedule.

The arising of thoughts in the independent consciousness is guided by the mental faculty; it arises, ceases, and moves according to the mental faculty's thoughts and ideas. For example, if the mental faculty thinks of a person, the eighth consciousness immediately manifests mental objects related to that person. After the mental faculty contacts and considers them, it decides to deliberate further. Then, the independent consciousness appears, attending to the mental objects related to that person, contacting, feeling, perceiving, and thinking. Consequently, the mental faculty, upon becoming aware, will make a decision. After this, the independent consciousness may continue to operate more deeply or vanish from this mental object, reappearing upon another mental object that the mental faculty clings to.

The mental faculty's various clingings give rise to the distracting thoughts of the independent consciousness. At the very moment a thought arises, no realm is manifested. The first moment is awareness of the thought's arising; only then does the image of the realm appear. There is a process between the arising of the thought and the manifestation of the realm. The realm was originally present, but without consciousness, it cannot be known. When consciousness appears, the first and second moments of discernment are incomplete and unclear. It is during the third and fourth moments of discernment that the mental object manifests more clearly, allowing a conclusion to be drawn and a rough outline of the mental object to emerge. Only after this does analysis and consideration occur, clarifying the mental object.

Most distracting thoughts in the mind are from past experiences, known as previously encountered realms. It is evident that the mental faculty often intentionally or unintentionally clings to mental objects, driven by strong habitual forces. The mind is not empty; it cannot let go of all past experiences involving people, events, and principles. It holds onto all these mental objects, swirling them within the mind, unwilling to relinquish them. They pile up like garbage, filling the heart, filthy and impure, yet the mind never knows to clean or sweep them away. Spiritual practice entails regularly cleaning and sweeping the hygiene of the heart—a thorough cleaning and major clearance—to maintain the purity of the mind-ground, so that the mind chamber becomes bright and pure. Cleaning is led and supervised by consciousness; the mental faculty agrees, but the actual cleaning is still done by consciousness. Planning, strategizing, and executing tasks are all the work of consciousness. The mental faculty only needs to nod, issue orders, and make the final decision.