The only way to help manas stop grasping at the notions of self and not-self is for us to practice deep looking into the impermanent and interdependent nature of reality.

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.

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

The base of all these cravings and afflictions is ignorance, our inability to see things clearly. Ignorance is the first element in the cycle of Interdependent Co-Arising. Our lack of understanding leads to volitional actions, which in turn lead us in the direction of sorrow.

Whether bitter or sweet, all mental formations are blocks of suffering in our consciousness.

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

This capacity of manas is akin to what biologists call the “primitive” brain, which functions solely in the interest of survival, of self-preservation.

The capacity of looking at formations as only conventional designations, the capacity to see them as having no separate selves, and the capacity to transform our attachment and craving will take us in the direction of liberation and healing.

The nature of manas is delusion, ignorance, and discrmination. It is imprisoned in its delusion and its craving for duration and satisfaction.