瑜伽師地論 意地 · 五事

The doctrinal summit of the Basic Section. The five [sense-]consciousnesses are the waves on the surface of the sea; the Stage of the Mental is the depths of the whole sea — the root of the eight consciousnesses and of the grasping at self.

In one line: With the three words "mind · mentation · consciousness," the Stage of the Mental sets up the eight consciousnesses in systematic order; and among them the seventh, the "constantly-operating mentation," constantly and searchingly deliberates on a self — it is the hidden axis of transmigration, the root of the self-grasping that Consciousness-Only sets out to break.

Three Points of the Eye

1. The intrinsic nature is the eight consciousnesses · threaded by three senses: mind = amassing-and-arising (the eighth, the store consciousness · holding the seeds, appropriating, maturational); mentation = deliberating (the seventh, manas, the deliberating mind · constantly and searchingly [deliberating] on a self); consciousness = discerning (the six turning consciousnesses · coarse, active, intermittent). Jinaputra: "the sixth, seventh, and eighth alike depend on the mentation-faculty, and so it says only 'mentation'" 〔T1580 0885c21〕; the Cheng Weishi Lun: amassing-and-arising is named mind · deliberating is named mentation · discerning is named consciousness 〔T1585 0024c10〕. This abbreviation of a single word marks out the deep mind in which mind, mentation, and consciousness are three-in-one.

2. The constantly-operating mentation = the hidden axis of self-grasping: the seventh, the "constantly-operating mentation," first shows itself here. Its point lies in the one word "constantly" — the prior six consciousnesses are coarse, active, and intermittent (in sleep, in a faint, in the mindless attainments they stop), whereas manas is unbroken, constant, and subtly grasps the store consciousness "as a self." From Stage 01's "defilement lies after deciding" (surface defilement) → the Stage of the Mental's "constantly-operating grasping at self" (deep self-grasping). What is hardest and most crucial in transforming consciousness into wisdom has its root right here.

3. The accompanying aids subsume all the mental factors = the source of the Hundred Dharmas: the five universals · the five object-specific · the eleven wholesome · the six [root] afflictions · the twenty secondary afflictions · the four indeterminate = the full listing of the fifty-one mental factors (the treatise-source of the mental factors of the Treatise on the Hundred Dharmas). Mind-king and mental factors: same object, distinct modes · coexisting yet each from its own seed · mutually associated.

The 漢 root text (Xuanzang, T30n1579) is kept as a de-emphasized visual anchor for bilingual readers; the English below renders every word of it in plain, continuous prose.

Setting the Theme: The Stage of the Mental, Too, Is under Five Items

云何意地？此亦五相應知。謂自性故，彼所依故，彼所緣故，彼助伴故，彼作業故。

What is the Stage of the Mental? This one too should be known under five aspects: its intrinsic nature, its support, its object, its accompanying aids, and its activity.

One · The Intrinsic Nature of the Mental (Mind · Mentation · Consciousness)

云何意自性？謂心、意、識。心，謂一切種子所隨、依止性所隨、性、體能執受、異熟所攝阿賴耶識。意，謂恒行意，及六識身無間滅意。識，謂現前了別所緣境界。

What is the intrinsic nature of the mental? It is mind, mentation, and consciousness. Mind is the store consciousness — that which the whole of the seeds attend upon, which the nature of being a basis attends upon, which is itself able to appropriate, and which is subsumed under karmic maturation (the eighth). Mentation is the constantly-operating mentation — that is, the deliberating mind (manas) — together with the mentation that is the just-ceased-without-interval of the fivefold body of consciousness (the mentation that, the prior six consciousnesses having just ceased, opens the way for the following moment). Consciousness is that which, present before one, discerns the object-field taken as its object (the prior six consciousnesses).

Two · Its Support

彼所依者，等無間依，謂意。種子依，謂如前說一切種子阿賴耶識。

Its support: the immediately-antecedent support, which is mentation (that which, in the prior moment, opens the way without interval); and the seed-support, which is the all-seeds store consciousness as stated before.

Three · Its Object

彼所緣者，謂一切法，如其所應。若不共者，所緣即受想行蘊、無為、無見無對色、六內處，及一切種子。

Its object is all phenomena, each according to what is fitting. As for what is uncommon (what the mental alone takes as object, which the five [sense-]consciousnesses cannot reach), the object is the aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations; the unconditioned; invisible-and-unresistant form; the six inner sense-bases; and all the seeds.

Four · Its Accompanying Aids (the Mental Factors)

彼助伴者，謂作意、觸、受、想、思，欲、勝解、念、三摩地，慧、信、慚、愧、無貪、無瞋、無癡、精進、輕安、不放逸、捨、不害、貪、恚、無明、慢、見、疑，忿、恨、覆、惱、嫉、慳、誑、諂、憍、害，無慚、無愧，惛沈、掉舉、不信、懈怠、放逸、邪欲、邪勝解、忘念、散亂、不正知，惡作、睡眠、尋、伺，如是等輩俱有相應心所有法，是名助伴

Its accompanying aids are these mental factors that co-arise and are associated with the mental: attention, contact, feeling, perception, and volition 〔the five universals〕; desire, resolve, mindfulness, meditative concentration, and discernment 〔the five object-specific〕; faith, shame, embarrassment, non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion, energy, pliancy, non-heedlessness, equanimity, and non-harming 〔the eleven wholesome〕; greed, anger, ignorance (avidyā), conceit, [wrong] view, and doubt 〔the six root afflictions〕; wrath, resentment, concealment, spite, envy, stinginess, deceit, dissimulation, arrogance, harming, non-shame, non-embarrassment, torpor, restlessness, non-faith, indolence, heedlessness, wrong desire, wrong resolve, forgetfulness, distraction, and non-discernment 〔the twenty secondary afflictions〕; and remorse, drowsiness, applied thought, and sustained thought 〔the four indeterminate〕. Mental factors of this sort, coexisting and associated [with the mental], are what is named the accompanying aids.

同一所緣，非同一行相，一時俱有一一而轉，各自種子所生。更互相應，有行相，有所緣，有所依。

These mental factors, together with the mind-king, "take one and the same object, yet their modes of apprehension are not one and the same; at one time they coexist and each operates one by one, and each arises from its own seed." They are further mutually associated with one another; each has its mode of apprehension, each has its object, and each has its support.

Five · Its Activity

彼作業者，謂能了別自境所緣，是名初業。復能了別自相、共相。復能了別去來今世。復剎那了別，或相續了別。復為轉、隨轉，發淨不淨一切法業。復能取愛非愛果。復能引餘識身，又能為因，發起等流識身。

Its activity: it is able to discern the object that is its own field — this is named the first activity. It is further able to discern the particular mark and the shared mark. It is further able to discern the past, the future, and the present. It is further able to discern in an instant, or to discern in continuous succession. It further acts as "turning" and "turning-along," setting in motion the karma of all phenomena, pure and impure. It is further able to take on agreeable and disagreeable fruit. It is further able to draw forth the remaining bodies of consciousness, and is further able to serve as the cause that sets arising the outflowing bodies of consciousness.

With the three words "mind · mentation · consciousness," the Stage of the Mental sets up the eight consciousnesses; the seventh, the constantly-operating mentation (manas), first breaks the surface here — the hidden axis of self-grasping; and the accompanying aids subsume the whole of the fifty-one mental factors — the treatise-source of the Hundred Dharmas.

Why the Second Stage Is Not Called the "Stage of Mental Consciousness" but Simply the "Stage of the Mental"

The five consciousnesses have been expounded; the second stage is the "Stage of the Mental." Yet the moment one opens it a small doubt arises: the five foregoing consciousnesses were the eye-consciousness, the ear-consciousness, and so on — the next in turn ought to be "mental consciousness," so why is this stage not called the "Stage of Mental Consciousness," but named by a single word, "the Mental"?

This abbreviation by one word conceals one of the most essential structural layers of the whole Consciousness-Only teaching. Jinaputra, in his commentary, says it in a single stroke: "As for the Stage of the Mental, the sixth, seventh, and eighth consciousnesses alike depend on the mentation-faculty. Omitting the three words 'consciousness,' 'body,' and 'associated,' it therefore says only 'mentation'" 〔Jinaputra's Commentary〕. So this stage does not expound the sixth mental consciousness alone; it gathers the sixth, seventh, and eighth consciousnesses — those that "turn in dependence on the mentation-faculty" — all together into one. Why can they be gathered together? Because these three consciousnesses all carry the sense of "mentation (deliberating)": "the eighth holds the seeds, and the sense of mind is the stronger in it; the sixth universally discerns object-fields, and the sense of consciousness is the stronger in it; [the seventh] — all are subsumed under the deliberating mentation-faculty." The three consciousnesses alike share the senses of mind, mentation, and consciousness, yet they are threaded through by the single sense of "mentation (deliberating)," and so are named together "the Stage of the Mental." This abbreviation by one word marks out the deep mind in which "mind, mentation, and consciousness" are three layers in one body.

The Intrinsic Nature Is the Eight Consciousnesses: Amassing-and-Arising Is Named Mind, Deliberating Is Named Mentation, Discerning Is Named Consciousness

And so, expounding the intrinsic nature of the mental, the treatise leads off with three words: "mind, mentation, and consciousness." These three words are no mere synonymous repetition; they cut open the whole depth of mind-and-consciousness layer by layer. Mind, the treatise says, is "the store consciousness that the whole of the seeds attend upon, that is itself able to appropriate, and that is subsumed under karmic maturation": the eighth store consciousness that holds and contains all the seeds, appropriates the bodily faculties, and is drawn forth by karma. Mentation, the treatise says, is "the constantly-operating mentation, together with the mentation that is the just-ceased-without-interval of the fivefold body of consciousness": the one being the constantly and unceasingly operating "constantly-operating mentation" (that is, the seventh, manas), the other being the "just-ceased-without-interval mentation" that, the prior six consciousnesses having just ceased, opens the way for the following moment. Consciousness, the treatise says, is that which is "present before one, discerning the object-field taken as its object": the prior six consciousnesses that, in the present, discern the six sense-objects.

The Cheng Weishi Lun glosses these three words most clearly: "Amassing-and-arising is named mind, deliberating is named mentation, discerning is named consciousness … The eighth is named mind, because it amasses the seeds of all phenomena and gives rise to all phenomena; the seventh is named mentation, because it takes the store consciousness and the rest as its object and constantly, searchingly deliberates on it as a self and so forth; the remaining six are named consciousness, because upon the six distinct objects they discern in a coarse, active, and intermittent way" 〔Cheng Weishi Lun〕, and it cites a verse from the Laṅkāvatāra in witness: "The store consciousness is named mind; the nature of deliberating is named mentation; that which can discern the marks of objects — this is called consciousness." — Mind is the storehouse (amassing the seeds and giving rise to phenomena); mentation is the hidden undercurrent that constantly and searchingly grasps a self; consciousness is the surface layer of discerning. The eight consciousnesses are, only at this stage, systematically set up one name at a time, in the order of their depth.

The Constantly-Operating Mentation: The Hidden Axis of Transmigration, Here Appearing for the First Time

Of the three, the one at which we should most pause is the line "mentation is the constantly-operating mentation." When Stage One spoke of the seed-support, the eighth store consciousness had already quietly stepped onto the stage; now, at the Stage of the Mental, the seventh manas — this "constantly-operating mentation" — formally shows itself for the first time.

Wherein lies its importance? It lies in that one word "constantly." The prior six consciousnesses are "coarse, active, and intermittent": once one is asleep, or has fainted, or has entered a mindless attainment, the prior six consciousnesses stop. Yet the seventh constantly-operating mentation does not stop — it "constantly and searchingly deliberates," constantly and in fine subtlety grasping the eighth store consciousness "as a self." The Cheng Weishi Lun says it "takes the store consciousness and the rest as its object and constantly, searchingly deliberates on it as a self and so forth": day and night, unresting, in a place you never notice at all, it settles that there is a "self." This is the very site of "self-grasping," the hidden axis of the flow of birth-and-death. And so the Consciousness-Only work of breaking the self, only here, recognizes its object clearly. Stage One's "defilement lies after deciding" breaks the surface layer — the defilement of grasping and clinging that mental consciousness performs at the point of deciding after a single moment of seeing or hearing; that is visible, and can be intercepted. But what the Stage of the Mental brings to light is a still deeper, still harder-to-counter "grasping that operates constantly": manas, not waiting on any deciding and not waiting on any external object, of its own accord constantly grasps the store consciousness as a self. Surface defilement can be broken awake in the present moment, but deep self-grasping must await the profound path of cultivation before it can be transformed. When Consciousness-Only speaks of "transforming consciousness into wisdom," the reason the transformation of the seventh manas into the "wisdom of equality" is the hardest and most crucial has its root precisely in this word "constantly." That never-closing "self" behind a single moment of seeing or hearing is just this.

The Object Is All Phenomena; the Accompanying Aids Subsume the Whole of the Mental Factors

The five consciousnesses each take their own object (the eye takes visible form, the ear takes sound), but the mental is not so — the treatise says the mental's "object is all phenomena." The aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations; the unconditioned; invisible-and-unresistant form; the six inner sense-bases; and even all the seeds — there is nothing it cannot take as object. The mental is what can universally take everything as object, and this too is the ground of why it can create karma, can cultivate the path, and can accomplish wisdom.

Precisely because it can universally take everything as object, the mental's "accompanying aids" are also the most abundant — here the treatise lists, in one breath, the whole of the mental factors: the five universals (attention, contact, feeling, perception, volition), the five object-specific (desire, resolve, mindfulness, meditative concentration, discernment), the eleven wholesome (faith, shame, embarrassment; the three wholesome roots of non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion; energy, pliancy, non-heedlessness, equanimity, non-harming), the six root afflictions (greed, anger, ignorance (avidyā), conceit, [wrong] view, doubt), the twenty secondary afflictions (wrath, resentment, concealment, spite, envy, stinginess, deceit, dissimulation, arrogance, harming; non-shame, non-embarrassment; torpor, restlessness, non-faith, indolence, heedlessness; wrong desire, wrong resolve, forgetfulness, distraction, non-discernment), and the four indeterminate (remorse, drowsiness, applied thought, sustained thought). This long string is precisely the treatise-source of the "mental factors" of the later Treatise on the Gateway to the Hundred Dharmas — the whole map of mental activity is laid out here, in the "accompanying aids" of the Stage of the Mental.

And when it has finished the list, the treatise adds the relation of mind-king and mental factors, in the same key as Stage One but drawn tighter: "they take one and the same object, yet their modes of apprehension are not one and the same; at one time they coexist, and each operates one by one, each arising from its own seed; they are further mutually associated, each having its mode of apprehension, its object, and its support" — taking one and the same object yet each distinct in mode, co-arising yet each from its own seed, and mutually associated with one another. Stage One had already set up this sense when speaking of the accompanying aids of the five consciousnesses; the Stage of the Mental now spreads it across the whole of the fifty-one mental factors.

Activity: The Mental Is the Master-Mind of Creating Karma and of Discerning

Last is spoken the activity: the mental can discern its own field, the particular mark and the shared mark, and the past, future, and present — the three times; it can discern in an instant or discern in continuous succession; it can act as "turning and turning-along, setting in motion the karma of all phenomena, pure and impure"; it can take on agreeable and disagreeable fruit; and it can draw forth the remaining bodies of consciousness and set arising the outflowing bodies of consciousness. In a word: the mental is the master-mind that discerns most widely and creates karma most powerfully — the five consciousnesses discern only the present field before them, whereas the mental reaches through the three times, ranges over all phenomena, and, setting in motion pure and impure karma, draws on fruit. 〔Mental consciousness has, besides, fourteen superior activities by which it surpasses the remaining consciousnesses; see M2 in detail.〕

The Essential Point of This Passage

The five items set up the skeleton of the Stage of the Mental all at once: intrinsic nature (mind · mentation · consciousness — the eight consciousnesses), support (the immediately-antecedent support · the seed-support), object (all phenomena), accompanying aids (the fifty-one mental factors), and activity (discerning and creating karma). The deepest hidden thread among the five is, within the intrinsic nature, "mentation is the constantly-operating mentation" — the seventh manas, here formally showing itself for the first time. Its "constantly and searchingly deliberating on a self" is that "constantly" which the prior six consciousnesses, "coarse, active, and intermittent," do not have; the very "self" that the whole of Consciousness-Only sets out to transform and to break has its hidden axis buried in this one word. The accompanying aids, listing the fifty-one mental factors in one breath, spread out the whole map of mental activity, becoming the treatise-source of the later Hundred Dharmas. The five items statically set up the eight consciousnesses; the later gathering-together of birth-and-death, of the world, and of the three characteristics all unfolds dynamically upon this very skeleton.

Carrying Forward

The intrinsic nature of the mental, "mind · mentation · consciousness," is carried forward and greatly filled out by the later Consciousness-Only treatise-storehouse: the Cheng Weishi Lun, in fascicles four and five, sets up the chapter on the seventh manas (constant, searching deliberation · its association with the four afflictions — self-delusion, self-view, self-conceit, self-love · the distinctions of its three phases), and in fascicles two and three expands upon the eighth store consciousness and the several mental factors; the Thirty Verses of Consciousness-Only — "next, the second transformation; this consciousness is named manas; in dependence on that it turns and takes that as object; deliberating is its nature and its mark" — sets up its verse precisely in inheritance of the "constantly-operating mentation"; and the "mental factors in five positions" of the Treatise on the Gateway to the Hundred Dharmas (the universals · the object-specific · the wholesome · the afflictions · the secondary afflictions · the indeterminate) are just the treatise-basis of the fifty-one mental factors listed in the accompanying aids of this stage. The Section on Ascertainment further re-ascertains, upon the Stage of the Five Sense-Consciousnesses and the Stage of the Mental — proving by eight characteristics that the store consciousness definitely exists, and broadly ascertaining the defiled manas — deeply ascertaining, in inheritance of this stage's intrinsic nature, the two consciousnesses of "mind" and "mentation."