Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

Manomaya
This verse was discussed in chapter 111 with reference to the term
PaparZca. It means:
Men who have conceptions of manifoldness of some kind go on separating
things when apperceiving; but [eventually] he [a bhikkhu] drives out everything
that is mind-made and to do with the mundane life and proceeds to a
life of renunciation.
The term manomaya here clearly refers to the fact that all samsiric
phenomena are processed by the manodhitu. In other words, the subjective
experience of the mundane life is conditioned by (maya) the mind (manas).
And the bhikkhu is to detach himself from such mundane life and turn
himself instead to the lokzlttara life which will lead to liberation.
This context in which manomaya is found appears different from the one
discussed above because here the term manomaya has been attached to the
incoming raw data of samsiric experience and not the thinking process as
such: the former data precede discursive thought, and the latter might be
described as the mind's processing of that data. But this passage gives us a
clear indication of the link between manodhitu and the mental processes in
general; and it suggests that the power of the mind in fact operates through
every level of the mental processes as a whole, from manodhh to thinking or
volitions. We have seen in chapter I that the need for the senses to be
guarded does not mean that it is in the senses themselves that unwanted
volitions originate. But manodhitu is the door through which samstira is
subjectively experienced. It is for this reason that experience acquires the
epithet manomaya, and also for this reason manodhitu can be understood as
the source, as it were, of the volitional process which determines one's
future lives.
There is, nevertheless, one further point which needs to be made
concerning this context in which the term manomaya is found. We have
seen that even liberating insight involves the use of the mind and we have
also seen that liberating insight has to be known: in one context identifying
such insight was referred to as the highest function of the safiiiikhandha.
This would seem to suggest that the turning of the mind towards lokuttara
rather than mundane things does not mean that the activity of manodhitu
ceases completely but that it would have some supra-sensory activity such
as was suggested in chapter I. So the reference in this SaFyatana Samyutta
context to the driving out of that which is mind-made is intended to be
figurative rather than literal. As with the teaching about the other senses,
the point is that one should be on one's guard not to be entranced by
samsiric experiences, but should instead be concerned with that which is
conducive to liberation. One might put this point differently and say that
the power of the mind is to be reorientated." This process was implied in
chapter IV where we saw that volitions can be used to eradicate other
volitions.
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