Understanding Our Mind: 51 Verses on Buddhist Psychology

And because one of the functions of manas is the instinct to survive, to protect the self, it grasps firmly to its belief that our mind/body is a permanent, never-changing self (atman).

If manas is obscured and confused, they are obscured and confused. If manas is partially liberated, they will be partially liberated.

Seeds are produced and strengthened by formations. Formations are manifestations of seeds.

manas hinders the functioning of the store consciousness and gets in the way of transforming the seeds.

Then the discrimination between self and nonself, mine and not mine, will vanish.

Our practice is to transform the nature of manas a little bit each day and release our store consciousness more and more from its grip.

Because the nature of manas is obscured, our mind consciousness is often also covered over by delusion. Unlike manas, however, our mind consciousness is capable of other modes of perception as well—direct or inferred. When our mind consciousness is able to perceive things directly, it is capable of touching the realm of suchness.

Another way to describe nirvana is interbeing.

Manas says the “self ” it has created as an object of its perception is the most important thing. This insight is obscured—it is mati, a strongly held, false perception.

Affliction-obstacles need more time, more practice, to dissolve. Our anger, misery, and despair are blocks in our store consciousness. We have to practice touching them deeply with the energy of mindfulness in order to see their roots and transform them.