Manas - Verse Nineteen

As the ground of wholesome and unwholesome
of the other six manifesting consciousnesses,
manas continues discriminating.
Its nature is both indeterminate and obscured.

The functioning of manas when clouded by ignorance is such that we consider ourselves most important. We discriminate all the time. This comes very naturally to us. That is why manas is also called the discriminating mind. The sense consciousnesses are influenced by manas.

Even when we marry, we crave for our own individual space and live separate lives. The protagonist in the Indian author Rabindranath Tagore's book, The Last Poem, proposes to his beloved in this manner -  "Your house would be on one bank of the river, my house on the other... I would light a lamp on my rooftop. On the evenings when we were to meet, the light would be red, and on the evenings we couldn't it would be blue.... I wouldn't come to your house without an invitation from you.... You would invite me once a month, on the full moon night.... During the vacations, we would travel for at least two months. But you and I would go to different places. If you went to the mountains, I would go to the sea. So this is my constitution of the duarchy of married life. What do you think?"

We are so preoccupied with ourselves that we give little importance to others. Even on a vacation our mind is elsewhere. It is like we are at two different places. We don't light lamps but message using our cell phones. If it doesn't go as we planned we are willing to part. We always think that we are separate from others. So we harbor this illusion that we must choose what is best for us. However, in reality, we are not separate from others and we cannot be happy unless the people in our life are happy.

The nature of manas is indeterminate so it is possible to transform. This can be done by transforming the seeds in our store consciousness, by transforming our habits.

(Based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.)

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