The Manas Silently Encompassing All Dharmas Demonstrates That the Manas Possesses the Nature of Good and Evil

Original text from the fourth volume of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: The mind consciousness silently accommodates all phenomena of the ten directions and three periods of time—all worldly and transcendental dharmas. It encompasses everything, from the sacred to the mundane, leaving nothing uncontained, exhausting all boundaries. You should know that the mind consciousness perfectly possesses the merit of twelve hundred.

Explanation: For example, the mind consciousness is able to silently accommodate all worldly and transcendental dharmas of the ten directions throughout the past, present, and future three periods of time. This includes both the ultimate truth and the conventional truth, encompassing the dharmas of sages and ordinary beings alike, reaching the very limits of all dharmas. Therefore, you should know that the mind consciousness perfectly possesses the merit of twelve hundred.

"Silently" means quietly, imperceptibly, without expression; "accommodates" means to contain, accept, possess, attend to, contact, perceive, conceive, volition, correspond, condition, know, and see. Why does the mind consciousness silently, imperceptibly condition all dharmas, contact all, see all dharmas, know all dharmas, and reject nothing? It is silent because the mind consciousness cannot speak, cannot write, and cannot use words, language, or sound to convey or reveal its mental activities and functions. It is imperceptible because the mental faculty (mano-vijñāna) mostly does not understand it, is unaware of its mental activities and functions, its operations, and its merits. Hence, it is called imperceptible. If the mental faculty could fully comprehend the merits of the mind consciousness and its functioning in all dharmas, it would not be imperceptible.

The meaning of the mind consciousness being able to accommodate all dharmas is that it can condition all dharmas, contain and accept all dharmas, discern all dharmas, know and see all dharmas, and operate its five universal mental factors upon all dharmas, corresponding with all dharmas. Naturally, it also corresponds with wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, accommodating both good and evil, itself possessing wholesome and unwholesome natures. The scope of all dharmas that the mind consciousness can condition and does condition is vast and boundless. The dharmas conditioned by the mental faculty cannot compare to those conditioned by the mind consciousness, and neither can compare to the vastness of the dharmas conditioned by the tathāgatagarbha.

What do all these dharmas conditioned by the mind consciousness include? First, they include the dharmas of the ten directions throughout the three periods of time. Within the conventional realm, this represents the greatest spatial scope, and the temporal scope of past, present, and future is also the greatest. Within this greatest expanse of time and space, the dharmas conditioned by the mind consciousness include all worldly dharmas, which are the resultant dharmas generated by the tathāgatagarbha using the seven great elements, such as material dharmas, mental dharmas, and mental factors. They also include transcendental dharmas that must operate and manifest within the world, such as the tathāgatagarbha, buddha-nature, suchness, as well as the ultimate truth, the supreme truth practiced by sages, including both sages and ordinary beings. This extends to the very edge of all dharmas—dharmas which the mind consciousness can no longer condition, dharmas that only the tathāgatagarbha alone can condition, and dharmas that lack worldly characteristics and do not operate within the world.

Because the mind consciousness can accommodate such a vast scope of dharmas, already exhausting the boundaries of dharmas operating within the world, it fully possesses the merit of twelve hundred, making it the most perfect, second only to the merit of the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, without doubt, the mind consciousness also accommodates the dharmas of sages and ordinary beings, accommodates wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, and possesses wholesome and unwholesome natures, wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, and mental activities. If it were not so, the merit of the mind consciousness would not exhaust the boundaries of all dharmas; if there were dharmas it could not accommodate, its merit would not be perfect.

This passage was spoken by the World-Honored One when explaining the merit of the mind consciousness. He stated that the mind consciousness perfectly possesses the merit of twelve hundred, but did not say the mental faculty's merit is perfect. This is because the mental faculty arises and ceases, lacks autonomy, cannot penetrate the three periods of time, and cannot even encompass all dharmas of the present life—there are many dharmas it cannot condition or discern, let alone the dharmas of the ten directions and three periods of time, which it cannot reach at all. Therefore, the mental faculty is an impermanent dharma, not a fundamental dharma, and is not worthy of reliance. Cultivation must focus on the fundamental dharma, the reliable dharma, the autonomous dharma. Only by eliminating the ignorance of the mind consciousness and perfecting its wisdom can one attain buddhahood.