The Function of Manas in Receiving and Processing Information

According to some materials, the brain receives a vast amount of information every second but can only process a tiny fraction of it. If it attempted to process all this information, the brain would be overwhelmed. To function normally, the brain automatically filters information, disregarding uninteresting or insignificant details and focusing only on useful and important information. Since people have different focuses, they observe different phenomena from the same information, leading to different attitudes and approaches. How can one remember key points and themes when encountering problems, enhance wisdom, and solve issues? The answer is to actively pose questions to the brain. These questions should target the core and essence of the problem, along with potential solutions. This directs the brain to think along these lines, thereby resolving the issue.

What is the brain? Ordinary people are unaware that the brain is a material form (rūpa) and lacks the function of consciousness. What they refer to as the "brain" generally means the mind faculty (manas). It is the mind faculty that receives massive amounts of information and selectively processes it, not the brain or the conscious mind (vijñāna). At this stage, consciousness has not yet arisen; all information falls to the mind faculty, which lacks the capacity and energy to confront and process all of it. It can only screen for information that is useful or relatively important. Only after this selection does consciousness arise to assist the mind faculty in processing the information.

The nature of the mind faculty, which silently accommodates all dharmas, and its sovereign role over all dharmas, is evident here. All dharmas certainly include the objects of the five senses (rūpa, sound, smell, taste, touch) and the sixth sense-object (dharma). If the mind faculty only contacts the dharma-dust (mental objects) and not the Five Dusts (objects of the five senses), where would the information from the Five Dusts go? Who would receive and screen it? Who would decide how to process it? Only after the mind faculty preliminarily screens the Five Dusts do the five consciousnesses arise to recognize and process them. Thus, the mind faculty holds the power of choice and processing over the Five Dusts and the five consciousnesses.

The automatic filtering of information and automatic focusing on personally relevant, useful information is the function of the mind faculty. This is the preliminary screening stage for vast amounts of information. At this point, consciousness has not yet arisen; it is unaware and unconscious of the activities of the mind faculty and all the information. Therefore, consciousness does not participate, choose, or hold sovereignty; it can only passively accept the information given to it by the mind faculty, being directed and regulated by it. If the mind faculty did not filter and screen information, it would be unable to cope with the massive influx and might even collapse. Even after screening, the remaining information is still immense and difficult to handle entirely. This causes the mind faculty to simultaneously engage with an excessive number of dharmas, preventing it from concentrating its energy to process this information effectively, appearing unwise.

How can the mind faculty generate wisdom? Naturally, it must continuously filter and reduce useless information, attending only to the information that should be processed at the present moment, ignoring everything else. Only when energy is concentrated can it process the attended information wisely. However, achieving this concentration is extremely difficult. It requires constant training through the cultivation of meditation (dhyāna), enabling the mind faculty to firmly settle on one dharma for contemplation.

Remembering key information and themes, and paying attention to and considering them, is also the function of the mind faculty. This is the functional role of the sovereign consciousness that can receive all information. When these functions of the mind faculty operate, consciousness is unaware and cannot participate. Only after the mind faculty remembers the information can it consider how to handle it, deciding whether to discard it or to deepen the understanding. If it chooses to deepen the understanding, the six consciousnesses will arise and discern this information. After discernment, the mind faculty comprehends and will again decide how to confront and process it. From this, it can be seen that it is the mind faculty that makes decisions and holds sovereignty at every stage, while the six consciousnesses perform the specific tasks of discernment and analysis, subordinate to the mind faculty.

Who poses questions to the brain? It is consciousness that poses questions to the mind faculty. It is consciousness that wants the mind faculty to consider, select, and process the vast amount of information, focusing on key and useful points. The act of questioning is not something the mind faculty can do, because questioning involves silent language, words, and sounds, with which the mind faculty does not correspond. The mind faculty can only hint to consciousness, and consciousness is unconsciously directed by it. What worldly people describe as the "brain" that receives and processes information refers to the mind faculty. What temporarily stores information is the sublime root (indriya). The mind faculty can contact, know, and process the dharmas within the sublime root. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra states that the mind faculty silently accommodates all dharmas, and its extensive tendency to grasp (prapañca) is fully revealed in this material.

Is the mind faculty busy? Does it passively receive vast amounts of information or actively receive it? It does both. Actively receiving vast amounts of information is called extensive grasping (prapañca). Passive reception is unavoidable because when karmic seeds mature, the Tathāgatagarbha must manifest and transmit them, such as information about illnesses or car accidents—it cannot evade these. Active thinking enhances wisdom more than passive acceptance. So, who poses the questions, who thinks, who solves the problems, and who enhances wisdom? Knowing what problem needs to be solved reveals who should solve it. The tasks of screening information and focusing on information are the responsibilities of the mind faculty.