The Agility of Manas

When asleep in the middle of the night, the six consciousnesses cease functioning. If a fire breaks out in the house and the manas (the mental faculty) wishes to flee, what should be done? This intention of manas cannot be realized without the cooperation of the body faculty and the six consciousnesses. Therefore, it is not that manas is inherently inferior in wisdom or incapable of action; rather, whatever it seeks to accomplish requires tools. Without these tools, it is rendered helpless, much like an imbecile.

Faced with such an urgent and critical situation, manas would certainly strive to awaken, enabling the mental consciousness to perceive the fire, and then coordinate with the five sensory consciousnesses to escape. In its urgency, manas causes the isolated mental consciousness to arise first. However, since the isolated mental consciousness cannot clearly discriminate, it transitions into the mental consciousness accompanied by the five sensory consciousnesses. As the five consciousnesses subsequently arise, one awakens. Once the mental consciousness discriminates the emergency, it decides to flee. After manas approves, it commands the five aggregates (the psychophysical being) to run, and the physical body dashes out the door.

Upon awakening, the mental consciousness and the nose consciousness arise together. Due to the strong smell of smoke, the nose consciousness arises before the other consciousnesses. Then the eye consciousness, body consciousness, ear consciousness, and tongue consciousness appear. The arising of the five consciousnesses follows a sequence: whichever external object (dust) is most prominent causes its corresponding consciousness to arise first. If the flames are bright, the eye consciousness arises first; if the room is excessively hot, the body consciousness arises first; if the sound of the fire or shouting is loud, the ear consciousness arises first.

In moments of crisis, bodily movements occur extremely swiftly. Consciousness has no time to deliberate, yet one rapidly evades danger. If, during an emergency, one were to wait for consciousness to discriminate, ponder, and analyze, the person would likely suffer harm. At such times, the function of consciousness is to cooperate with the five sensory consciousnesses, following the directives of manas to act swiftly. Manas proves exceptionally agile in critical moments.