The World of Black Boxes
Chapter Four: The Illusions Inside the Black Box
I. The Illusions of Time and Space
(1) Time Is a False and Unreal Dharma
Time is a conditioned dharma dissociated from mind (citta-viprayukta-saṃskāra); it is false and not a truly existent dharma. Why is time an illusory dharma? On what basis is the time of this life, or half of this life, calculated? The five aggregates of body and mind running through one year's time is called one year of age. A year has three hundred and sixty-five days; the time of one day is set according to the movement of the sun, or one might say, set according to the earth's revolution around the sun. Each hour of the day is set according to the angle at which sunlight strikes the ground, or according to the length of the shadows cast by objects under the sunlight. But the earth is a provisional dharma, the sun and its light are provisional dharmas, objects on the ground are provisional dharmas, shadows are provisional dharmas—when these provisional dharmas combine, can they yield a true dharma called time? Obviously not.
The time thus displayed is even more false than those material forms; it does not correspond with one's own mind. No matter what the mind does, these provisional dharmas simply run their regular course, and each day's time flows past. Day after day accumulates into a year; year after year accumulates into ten years; further accumulation and half a lifetime has passed; further accumulation and a whole lifetime has passed, and life ends. Therefore time is also called "light and shade" (guāngyīn) and "time's passage" (shíguāng)—a false appearance displayed primarily by the sun and objects. In fact it has no appearance at all, no appearance whatsoever. Yet everyone still counts on their fingers; however you count, there is no dharma called time in existence—it is all illusion, misapprehension, false discrimination, and conceptual proliferation (prapañca).
Time also represents the process of movement and change of mind-consciousness: one thought after another, one action after another, running onward; their continuous succession displays time. Thoughts are not real, actions are not real, the appearance of continuity is false, and so time is not real either. Empty out time, empty out space, empty out material form, and our mind becomes much more relaxed—no sense of oppression, no sense of tension, at ease and carefree. Then empty out body and mind as well, and the self is liberated.
(2) The Division of Space
Space is divided on the basis of material form. For example, one room and another room are two spaces; walls, roof, and foundation manifest the space of a house, as well as the different positions of the rooms. Another example: the division of the space of two countries is made according to geographical location, area, and extent on the ground; a trichiliocosm (great thousand world), a buddha-land, is divided according to the inanimate world (bhājana-loka) of the three realms of the universe. Yet whether it be walls, earth, bricks and tiles, or houses, fields and dwellings, mountains and rivers, the great earth, the starry cosmos, or the inanimate world of the three realms—all are material false appearances formed from the four great element seeds output by the tathāgatagarbha; their essence is illusory, not truly existent. Since even the objects do not exist, how could there be space?
For example, place A and place B are two spaces; the distance between the two places is measured and calculated in units such as meters and kilometers. The measuring units of meters and kilometers are all artificially stipulated on the basis of matter, and this matter is all composed of the four great elements, fabricated and produced by the tathāgatagarbha, not truly existent. Therefore the measuring units are not truly existent either, and so the distance and space between places A and B are not truly existent either; indeed, places A and B themselves are not truly existent—all is illusory.
Another example: two planets in the universe are two spaces, and the distance between them is calculated in light-years. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year's time; the speed of light is three hundred thousand kilometers per second. This involves light, time, and kilometers. Kilometers have already been analyzed: they exist dependent on matter and are false. Time also exists dependent on matter; since matter is not truly existent, time is also false. Now consider light: it too is a material form, fabricated from the four great element seeds output by the tathāgatagarbha, inherently false. The time, distance, and speed of light's travel are therefore false, and so the distance and space between planets are false.
(3) The False and Unreal Nature of Distance
There is a pot of flowers five meters in front of you—what kind of object-realm is this distance? Is it real? On what basis do we judge it to be five meters? The flowerpot is within the supreme faculty (indriya) of the brain; one's own body is within the supreme faculty; there is fundamentally no such thing as distance—it is all conditioned image realms and real-object realms, and the space in between is displayed within the black box of the supreme faculty. Then the mind consciousness, based on these three, judges a distance of five meters: it judges on the basis of material form, displays the dharma of space, and then judges that dharma of space.
But in reality all three are within the supreme faculty, with no gap or distance between them. The conclusion reached by the mind consciousness's judgment is like a turtle's hair or a rabbit's horns—not even a shadow can be grasped. How is the distance within the supreme faculty of the brain judged? There is fundamentally no distance and no space. To judge distance requires reference objects; the reference objects are false and illusory, and distance is even more false and illusory.
(4) Space Is Produced and Manifested by the Tathāgatagarbha
Distance is demarcated by a mixture of matter and time. Matter is false and not truly existent; time is false and not truly existent; distance is therefore false and not truly existent. Space is the boundary-aspect of form (rūpa-paryanta-rūpa); a place without form-appearance is called space, but in fact there is no space—it is merely a foil, nothing but a false feeling of the conscious mind. If space, voidness, and distance were real, then beings of great supernatural powers, such as the buddhas and bodhisattvas, would not be able, in a finger-snap, in a single thought-moment, to reach countless buddha-lands. The Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: 虚空生汝心内，如片云点太清里。The meaning is that although empty space is immeasurably and boundlessly vast, it is within our tathāgatagarbha mind, just like a wisp of cloud suspended in the sky—such is the smallness and illusory unreality of empty space.
This shows that empty space is also produced and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, and is not a truly existent dharma. The Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra that empty space is false, a provisional dharma, the boundary-aspect of form. For example, take a mountain: where there is a mountain there is no empty space; if the mountain is moved away, empty space appears; if the mountain is moved back, empty space disappears. This shows that empty space is spoken of relative to material form and is displayed by form. Therefore time and space are illusions; when the illusion is corrected, that is right awakening. One of right awakening is a normal sentient being—the buddhas and bodhisattvas; one of illusion is a deluded and inverted sentient being, not a normal person. One who is thoroughly and completely normal is the Buddha, while the degree of abnormality of sentient beings varies.
(5) I walked from place A to place B, taking one hour and covering eight li. Along the way I passed mountains, rivers, and fields, passing one road marker after another. First, time is demarcated on the basis of the sun's illumination and is not real; second, the road markers passed are material forms and not real; third, my five-aggregate body is fundamentally not truly existent, the activities of the five aggregates are not truly existent—my legs and feet never truly lifted, nor truly moved.
None of all this—time, space, places, people—is real; yet in this way an illusory "I" is constructed, illusorily walking from the conjured place A to the conjured place B, and the matter is thus illusorily accomplished. There is no time, no space, no mountains, great earth, rivers, fields, trees, or houses, no five-aggregate body of mine, and no empty space. Only my tathāgatagarbha itself is playing with all of this—it is just so! In the transcendent realm, there is fundamentally no time and space; time and space are worldly dharmas, and not one worldly dharma is real.
In my dream, I flew from one buddha-land to another buddha-land, but after waking I found that all night I had been on my bed, not moving the slightest bit. We sentient beings are right now in the great dream of birth and death, widely creating countless karmic actions. When we attain buddhahood, in that instant of waking from the great dream, we will know that we did nothing at all, that nothing happened; nothing in the dream counts—even though we killed countless sentient beings, in fact we never killed a single sentient being. When we become buddhas and wake from the great dream of birth and death, nothing will ever have happened—no time, no space, none of the people, events, things, and principles of the dream.
Only by waking—our sole task is to find a way to wake from the great dream of birth and death as quickly as possible! And then there is nothing at all to be done—how wonderful! In the Buddha's eyes there is nothing at all; in our minds everything is a matter—there is every kind of matter—and so we are inverted sentient beings, one hundred and eighty degrees inverted from the Buddha: the Buddha faces south while we face north. Inverted sentient beings take everything they see as real—wars, hatreds, ethnicities, nations, justice, evil... Wake up quickly! Dream no more!
II. The Illusion of the Torch Becoming a Ring of Fire
Seeing a burning match-head produces one kind of feeling; if the burning match-head is shaken rapidly, forming a circle of fire, you will have another kind of feeling—when the perceived appearance differs, the feeling differs. Seeing a torch is one feeling; rapidly swinging the torch to form a ring of fire makes the feeling more intense and more soul-stirring. Whatever the feeling, contemplate it (vipaśyanā-caryā), analyze it deeply, and you will know it was a false alarm, a deluded feeling—on what basis? Agitated into unrest by fire in a mirror, terrified by dangers on a screen—where is there any real event?
The burning match-head as an external sense-object, however rapidly it is swung, remains forever a single point, a single match-head; it can never form a small ring of fire—just like a person running on a circular track: however fast they run, it is forever one person running; there will not be many identical people running around the track forming a circle. But if the viewer's eyesight has a problem and cannot keep up with the runner's speed, a visual obstacle appears: the earlier figure has not yet vanished when the later figure appears, and so on, figure after figure continuously appearing—he will then see many people running in a circle around the track.
When the particles of the external match-head enter the black box, it is likewise a single match-head; no matter how fast the external match-head is swung, at any one point in time and position there is only one inner match-head in the black box—there will not be many match-heads gathering into a circle. Then why does the conscious mind see a ring of fire? This is the phenomenon of persistence of vision: the past image is still in the conscious mind while new images keep appearing in sequence, so it seems as if a ring of fire were seen. Even seeing a single match-head is an unreal seeing, an illusion—let alone seeing many match-heads forming a small ring of fire.
III. The Illusion of the Dome-Screen Movie
The six consciousnesses cognize the inner six sense-objects within the black box and take the various object-realms to be extremely three-dimensional and solid, seeming very real, without the slightest feeling that the object-realms are illusory and unreal. It is like a person sitting in a dome-screen cinema watching a dome-screen movie: the images on the screen feel extremely real—seeing a plane on the screen as if it were about to fly over one's head, seeing a sharp knife about to stab one's heart, seeing a bullet about to fly toward one's forehead, seeing a club about to strike one's body.
In short, whatever one sees feels especially real, as if one were personally on the scene—of course this includes the sounds one hears. But when we calm down and reason, we know that not a single dharma on the screen exists in reality, and there are no real objects on the screen either—it is all merely a synthesis of various modern technological information, deceiving our senses into trusting it, giving rise to various mental states and various feelings, even feeling stimulated and thrilled, feeling fear and fright.
The six sense-object realms we see are just like this. The black box is like the dome-screen cinema; the six consciousnesses sit inside the black box watching the six sense-object realms within it, feeling that all realms are extremely real—so solid, three-dimensional, and vivid that one can hardly let go, or hates them to the bone; one is indeed personally on the scene, situated amid the various realms, inseparable from them. In reality these realms are the same as the scenes in a dome-screen movie—all virtually produced, mere combinations of signals; there is no such event.
IV. The Principle of Refraction Explains the Illusion in Seeing Form
Seeing form with the eye requires light; light is one of the conditions for seeing form—without light, form cannot be seen. Light serves to hold up and display the form sense-object; as long as the form object is within the light source, it can be held up and displayed. Then the tathāgatagarbha takes in the four great element particles on the form object and transmits them to the gross material sense faculty of the eye, and then through the nervous transmission system into the black box. The form object and the other six sense-object realms discerned by the eye consciousness are all illusory shadows, with a certain difference from the original six sense-object realms; the six sense-objects in the black box are not the substantial object-realms outside—they are images conjured in a mirror.
The principle of refraction can show that the form object seen by the eye consciousness within the black box is not the true original form object outside, but a form that has changed, resembling the original form object—not true form. Light travels at a certain speed, and its speed differs in different media, because different media have different material structures and thus different resistance. When light passes through two media, at the boundary between the media its direction of propagation changes, and refraction occurs. If a form object happens to appear at the boundary of the media, the light will hold it up and display it there, and the appearance displayed in the two media will change.
For example, air and water are two media with different resistance to the propagation of light. When light travels from air into water, its direction changes, and the displayed form object changes, while the form object itself does not change. For instance, a chopstick is half-inserted in water: the light separately displays the part of the chopstick in air and the part in water, their positions change, and the eye consciousness sees the chopstick as bent. Does this bending phenomenon appear in the black box of the supreme faculty, or does it appear at the external object-aspect and the original object realm before transmission to the eye faculty?
If the chopstick of the external form object—the original object realm—were bent, would the chopstick still be bent when taken out of the water? The chopstick of the original object realm, in whatever medium, does not change; otherwise it would look different when taken out of the medium—but in fact it does not look different; it is the same as before. The phenomenon of the chopstick's bending begins to appear at the external object-aspect, the conditioned image realm, manifested by the tathāgatagarbha in dependence on the original object realm, and continues up to the internal object-aspect within the supreme faculty. Therefore the eye consciousness cannot see the truth, and the mind consciousness also cannot see the truth.
Does the black box deceive people? Does the eye consciousness deceive people? Do you still believe your own eyes? Do you believe that everything you see is real? Do you believe that everything discerned by your six consciousnesses is real? Are you still self-confident? Still talking about this and that every day, saying this is right and that is wrong—have you really seen anything clearly? Even seeing with your own eyes someone stealing may not be stealing; even catching someone red-handed with the goods may not be fact; eyewitness and material evidence may not be true evidence; someone hitting or scolding you may not hate you; someone caring for you may not love you; sharp words may not be mean-spirited; overwhelming thunderous force may not be cruel. When the eye's light is not upright, one cannot see the truth; when the mind's light is not upright, one cannot perceive the facts.
The bending of the chopstick is in fact an illusion brought to us by light. The chopstick has not bent; it is because the direction of light's propagation changed that the relative position of the displayed chopstick changed—in fact nothing changed. The tathāgatagarbha transmits the shadows of the two segments of the chopstick displayed by the light into the supreme faculty, and the eye consciousness and mind consciousness see the bent chopstick.
Likewise, when sunlight shines into water, the light beam's direction changes, making the water appear very shallow, but in fact the water is not shallow—the shallowness is an illusion of the eye consciousness and mind consciousness. The light beam also makes the position of the fish in the water appear shallower than it is, so that if you grab at that position you will not catch the fish at all; the fish is not at the position seen by your eye consciousness and mind consciousness, but diagonally below that position, invisible to the eye consciousness.
Light can bring us illusions, and darkness can likewise bring us illusions. In darkness, we always feel there is something frightening, something unpredictable, something beyond our control that might invade or threaten us—but in fact there is nothing; it is merely the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) rambling in idle fantasy.
V. Different Beings Seeing the Same Form Differently Shows That Seeing Form Is an Illusion
When a chopstick is inserted in water, devas of the form realm absolutely cannot see the bending phenomenon, because form-realm devas live above the sun, have their own light and do not need sunlight; their seeing of form is not affected by sunlight and does not need sunlight's illumination, so naturally they will not see the chopstick bend. Devas of the desire realm may also not see the bending phenomenon, because desire-realm devas do not depend on the brain's supreme faculty and do not live in a black-box world; moreover, because of their vast merit, they see form with the divine eye, which is far superior to the physical eye, and everything they see differs from beings below the heavenly realms. Furthermore, the moon resides in the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings and the sun in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven; the four heavens above Trāyastriṃśa have no sun and moon, and the devas of those four heavens likewise do not need the light of sun and moon to see form—they also see form with the divine eye, and what they see is fundamentally different from what humans see.
For example, seeing the same river Ganges: devas see it as lapis lazuli, humans see water, fish see palaces and home, hungry ghosts see flames—because their merit differs, their karma differs, and their eyes differ. When devas see humans, dogs see humans, cattle see humans, horses see humans, cockroaches see humans—what they see all differs, their feelings and thoughts differ, and their reactions differ. Even human seeing human has differences: a woman seen from a man's perspective and a woman seen from a woman's perspective are not seen the same; seen from a child's perspective and from an elder's perspective, there are also differences. Even among humans, because individual merit differs and karmic obstructions differ, views of the same event also differ; therefore feelings differ, thoughts differ, reactions differ, and choices differ. Then what standard or reality is there in what sentient beings see? It is all illusory and unreal.
VI. The Phenomenon of Brain Atrophy Shows the Illusoriness of the Black-Box World
The clinical manifestations of brain atrophy fall into two major categories: decline of brain tissue function and cognitive impairment, mainly related to the location and degree of the atrophy. Diffuse cerebral cortical atrophy means that the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile perception areas of the cerebral cortex, as well as the functional areas of language, thinking, and movement, have undergone organic lesions of varying degrees.
The six consciousnesses mainly rely on the above areas to cognize the six sense-object realms within the supreme faculty and to produce bodily, verbal, and mental actions. If the cerebral cortex atrophies diffusely, the six sense-object realms generated in the brain's supreme faculty will become distorted and lose fidelity, causing various obstructions and inversions in the six consciousnesses' cognition, recognition, and judgment, which in turn cause the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of perception, and the aggregate of volitional formations to become disordered and abnormal; in severe cases there may even be symptoms such as visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile hallucinations. People and events that clearly do not exist are said to exist; people and events that clearly exist become blurred and indistinct, with confused cognition. Cerebellar atrophy often leads to muscle paralysis, weakened contractility, and motor incoordination related to speech and limbs, producing slurred speech and unsteady gait with tremors.
The cerebellar and cerebral atrophy described above are lesions of the black box of the supreme faculty. Once the black box of the supreme faculty becomes abnormal, sentient beings' cognition of the six sense-object realms will be obstructed, causing bodily, verbal, and mental actions to become further distorted and disordered, severely affecting quality of life. Therefore, sentient beings live in the black-box world; what they cognize is the realm within the black box of the supreme faculty, and the black box is sentient beings' vast world. That is to say, the black-box world is extremely illusory and unreal, extremely unreliable, and not to be depended upon.
VII. Obstructions Caused by Lesions of the Supreme Faculty
The supreme faculty resides in the brain and is where mental dharmas and material dharmas connect. When the four great elements of the supreme faculty are disharmonious, cerebellar atrophy and cerebral degenerative disease can cause motor impairment, cognitive impairment, and memory impairment. Because of the aging and lesion of the supreme faculty, the mental dharmas—the six consciousnesses—cannot function and arise normally, and sentient beings easily die. Brain hypoxia and atrophy can both destroy the supreme faculty and obstruct the arising of the six consciousnesses and their various cognitive activities. Human life is extremely fragile: if one breath fails to come, brain hypoxia and brain death result, ending life. Why is deep breathing conducive to attaining meditative concentration? Deep breathing ensures the brain's oxygen supply and benefits physical health; with the brain unobstructed and the six consciousnesses comfortable, without needing to resist or alter the physical body, meditative concentration is easier to attain.
From this we can see that the functions of the five aggregates are dependent origination (paratantra)—they cannot be self-governing, cannot stand on their own, and are extremely illusory and unreal. Relying on so many external conditions for normal five-aggregate activity, lacking even one will not do—such a five-aggregate body is extremely unreliable, too insubstantial; therefore none of it is the self. What sentient beings depend on is all unreliable. If one could depend on nothing at all, one would be fearless. It would be wonderful if in the future we could cultivate to the point of not relying on any external environmental conditions; when conditioned and perishable things can no longer affect us, the five-aggregate body would be almost immortal—presumably this requires the eighth bhūmi and above. We should seek the reliable, unchanging, permanent dharma that does not require external conditions and rely on that.
VIII. The Illusions of Nearsighted and Farsighted Eyes
Nearsightedness and farsightedness are mainly related to organic degeneration of the gross material sense faculty; the four great element particles transmitted through the gross faculty are slightly deformed, causing the image formed in the supreme faculty to be distorted, no longer matching the original appearance, and what the eye consciousness and mind consciousness discern is the deformed form object—hence the need for glasses to correct and compensate for the lesion of the gross faculty. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One spoke of people whose retinas are impaired, who have cataracts: when they look at a lamp's light, they can see a circular shadow appear in the lamplight, though in fact there is no circular shadow in the lamplight—others cannot see it. It is because a bit of excess flesh has grown on the diseased eye's retina, obstructing the transmission of the four great element particles of the external form object, so that a dark spot appears in the supreme faculty at the back of the brain—that is the circular shadow. The inner form object of the lamplight seen by the eye consciousness and mind consciousness has the circular shadow; it is not all bright.
Closing the eyes to rest the spirit, calm and composed: when the eyes look at things, qi and blood are consumed; excessive use of the eyes causes qi deficiency and blood loss. When the body's organs such as the liver and kidneys lack sufficient qi and blood and become deficient, eye fatigue, soreness, and distension result, producing lesions such as nearsightedness and farsightedness, blurred vision, and the need for nearsighted or farsighted glasses to read text and so on. Although people with eye disease see things blurred and unclear, other normal people viewing the same objects and text see them normally, clearly and distinctly. Therefore the form each sentient being sees is the false and empty form within the black box of their own supreme faculty, not the true and real form outside.
After putting on glasses, seeing form seems clear and normal again, but the form seen is even more illusory and unreal. The tathāgatagarbha takes in the particles of the external form object, which travel through the air to the glasses; the particles differ somewhat from the actual external form object. The glass lenses of the glasses block out a portion of the particles and magnify the form object, turning it into a false, similar illusion composed of a rearranged combination of particles, which is then transmitted to the gross faculty of the eye, where the particles are blocked again, and through the eye's vitreous body and optic nerve transmitted into the supreme faculty, becoming an inner form object even more false and illusory than before, appearing slightly larger than before, making it easier for the eye consciousness and mind consciousness to discern. So what reality is there in what the six consciousnesses discern? What need is there to be attached to the likes and dislikes, the rights and wrongs, of forms and sounds?
IX. The Principle of All Kinds of Lenses Is the Same
Magnifying glasses, concave and convex lenses, funhouse mirrors, and microscopes operate on the same principle as nearsighted and farsighted glasses: they all serve to alter the external object-aspect of the form object transmitted by the tathāgatagarbha, and then transmit the form object altered by these lenses into the gross faculty and the supreme faculty. In that case, the inner form object in the black box is formed through successive transformations by multiple media. Then what reality is there in the form object that sentient beings see through these lenses? How great is the difference from the original realm of the external original object? What substantial appearance is there to touch and use?
X. Questions for Reflection: First, when nearsighted or farsighted eyes are without glasses, is the form seen as it really is? Second, various lenses can bring illusions—when wearing glasses, is the form seen as it really is? Third, when the eyes are normal, is the form seen real and true?
Conclusion: Whatever can change in accordance with conditions—when conditions change, the dharma changes—such a dharma is certainly a false dharma, an illusory dharma, an insubstantial dharma; it must be negated, not taken as real, nor taken as self or belonging to self. Then do you still believe what your physical eye sees? Do you believe what the six consciousnesses know and perceive? Finally: is everything you know correct? Are you still self-confident? And finally: do you still take the false as real? Do you want to take the real as real? Will you be able to take the real as real in the future? How to take the real as real?
XI. The Solitary Consciousness's Illusion of Deranged Realms
When investigating Chan, or when sitting in meditation cultivating concentration, the mind consciousness focuses on one realm with relatively concentrated attention, without attention (manaskāra) toward other mental sense-objects or the six sense-object realms. If suddenly struck or loudly shouted at, the mind consciousness and manas are unprepared—that is, without attention—and the sudden sound startles them, easily causing derangement, the mind consciousness going mad.
The mind that loses itself and goes mad is the mind consciousness; what the solitary consciousness cognizes is the deranged realm, also a subjectively imagined realm—a non-valid cognition and a deranged cognition. Externally this manifests as abnormality: because it cognizes an abnormal deranged realm, producing erroneous cognition, behavior becomes bizarre. But to the person himself, it is normal—he considers it a normal reaction.
XII. The Illusion of Sound
Person A's speaking voice: B listens beside him, C listens through a telephone, D listens through a recording device, E listens through a metal pipe, F listens through a vacuum pipe, G listens through a wall, H listens through a door, I listens through a loudspeaker—are the sounds these people hear different? Why? Sound transmitted through vacuum, through air, through metal, through an empty pipe—the sound discerned by the ear consciousness will differ.
Sound belongs to the material form of the four great elements; its transmission must pass through a medium—without a medium it cannot be transmitted. Different media offer different resistance, transmission speeds differ, the changes in the four great element particles of the sound object differ, and thus the sound differs. What is resistance? It means that in the process of transmission, a portion of the four great element particles cannot pass through the medium and is blocked or absorbed by it; then the portion of particles that does pass through the medium has changed, and the sound formed will be altered. The more media traversed in between, the longer the distance, the greater the resistance, the more particles blocked, the more the sound degenerates.
The ultimate destination of sound transmission is the black box of the supreme faculty. Each person's auditory nerves and brain nutrients differ, and their effects on the sound entering the supreme faculty differ, so the sound each person hears differs to some degree. This shows that the sound we hear is not real; in fact there is no such thing as "sound"—it is only a mass of electrical signals and information. We all live in a virtual world of information.
XIII. How Sound Is Produced
How is the sound of speech produced? Some people's mouths never rest all day, always talking, talking, talking—uncomfortable if not talking; some people do not say a word all day and do not feel stifled. Speaking is related to a person's inner initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra); vitarka-vicāra arises from thinking. After inner thinking, vitarka-vicāra and feelings arise, stirring the interior, and a stream of qi is generated at the dantian; if this stream of qi is not released, one feels stifled. Then the wind begins to move from the dantian, successively touching the navel, heart, chest cavity, lungs, windpipe, throat, tongue, and teeth, and thus strings of sounds are produced.
This sound is composed of the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—and has material properties. Contacting the internal organs, it involves a certain loss of energy; much talking harms both qi and spirit, and also causes meditative concentration to dissipate. Sound composed of the four great elements also carries a certain magnetic-field effect, exerting positive or negative influence on people. Each syllable in a sound arises and ceases; even the tiniest elements composing each syllable arise and cease, extremely fast. Then in sound composed of such rapidly arising-and-ceasing elements, the earlier sound is not the later sound—each sound differs—what reality is there? If one insists on discerning the meaning within, the meaning is also false and unreal. Hearing praise, one is happy; hearing criticism, one is unhappy—why such emotional reactions? It is still taking sound and its content too seriously.
All these dharmas are matters within the black box, with no reality to speak of. The sound emitted from A's mouth is conjured and produced solely by A's tathāgatagarbha; it is the direct object condition (ālambana-pratyaya) of A's tathāgatagarbha. When B hears it, the sound is the indirect object condition of B's tathāgatagarbha; when this indirect object condition is further manifested in B's supreme faculty, the four great element particles have changed considerably, and the sound heard by B's ear consciousness and mind consciousness is greatly distorted, even more unreal.
So if I curse you across from you all day, you need not react at all. If a loudspeaker praises you all day, you need not feel pleased either—it is nothing, just a string of meaningless electromagnetic-wave signals. Many people have vanity, seeking fame and reputation, hoping everyone will know them and know their names—not knowing what they want that empty fame for or what use it is; at most it provides self-consolation and self-intoxication. In fact, being known or unknown makes no difference. These people cannot see through it, willing to add burdens and encumbrances to themselves.
XIV. What the Six Consciousnesses Cognize Is All Information; There Are No Real Six Sense-Objects
The six sense-object realms contacted by the six consciousnesses are all signals transmitted from the original object realm, also called information. No matter what the five sense-object realms are like, by the time they reach the black box they are all information, and what the six consciousnesses perceive is also information and shadows—yet they are mistaken for three-dimensional, resplendent object-realms. How to prove this? We know it from the information cognized by eye and ear on mobile phones and computers. The information on phones and computers, though including text, pictures, and video, as well as sound, is all information received by the phone or computer—there are no text, pictures, video, or sound on them.
For example, an online group has one hundred people, each communicating in the group through phone and computer, viewing the text, pictures, and videos in the group space, listening to the voice messages in the group space. Yet what each person hears and sees is the content within their own black box of the supreme faculty, belonging only to themselves, not shared with others. Therefore, deleting any information at will on one's own phone or computer has no effect on others, and others do not know. Moreover, no matter how others process this information, it has no effect on the original object realm.
How does this information appear? One person types on their phone; the typed text belongs to the original object realm. Signals are transmitted through the medium of the phone, and other people's phones receive the signals, which are transmitted into the supreme faculty; the six consciousnesses arise and cognize—what they cognize is information, not text, pictures, video, and sound. Yet the six consciousnesses insist on recognizing this information as concrete forms and sounds—clearly the cognition of the six consciousnesses is an illusion. Moreover, everything in the black box is entirely information and signals; there are no substantial, concrete six sense-object realms—they are all shadows. Therefore what the six consciousnesses cognize is entirely false images.
How do we see a mass of signals as if they were six sense-object realms? It is like a string of signals being virtually rendered into a television picture: we are actually watching television, but are disconnected from the TV picture. Why do we pour our minds into the virtual picture? How can we draw the mind out and leave the picture? To be a bystander—how relaxed and pleasant that would be, everything unrelated to me—how liberated!
Toward all realms: they are all a picture on my mind, illusorily arising and ceasing, illusorily coming and going. I watch realms arise, watch realms cease, watch realms come, watch realms go—letting realms come and letting realms go, while my mind remains utterly unmoved. Cultivation should be like this, and ultimately will be like this—only then is there liberation.
XV. What Is Seen by the Divine Eye and in Meditative Concentration Are All Illusions
What the divine eye sees is also manifested by one's own tathāgatagarbha; if one takes what is seen as real, that too is an illusion. The forms of meditative concentration's fruit (samādhi-fruit form) are produced in the brain, produced in the supreme faculty; therefore the samādhi-fruit forms seen in meditative concentration are still illusions. As long as there is a physical body, a brain, all dharmas will be produced there. Mental sense-objects, form included in the dharma base (dharma-āyatana), are all manifested in the brain.
What is the Buddha's light? When the conscious mind does not know or discriminate, there are still form objects, and these form objects are still false, illusory, composed of the four great elements, arising and ceasing in every instant, empty. The Buddha's light is also composed of matter, a form dharma composed of the four great elements—false, illusory, arising and ceasing, unreal. Therefore, sitting in meditation and seeing the Buddha's light and taking it as real is an illusion; thus we have no need to be attached to the Buddha's light—the Māra king can also manifest such lights, and the Māra king can also conjure the appearance of a Buddha.
XVI. Why There Are More Fish on the Monitor Than Actual Fish
Zhu Qingshi said: Our world is like this big fish tank, with a goldfish swimming inside. Suppose there are at least two video cameras, one observing the tank from the side, one observing the tank from behind, and in another room there are two monitors. Imagine a person entering the monitor room: he would see two fish in the tank, and the two fish are not the same, because one is filmed from the tail end and one from the side. These two fish are strange: whatever action one of them makes, the other immediately responds, and both are simultaneous.
The monitor is analogous to the black box, and the person to the six consciousnesses; the six consciousnesses seeing the six sense-object realms within the black box is analogous to a person seeing the images on the monitor. The monitor monitors a single fish in the tank in another room; clearly there is one fish in the tank—why can two different fish be seen on the monitors? Because the two cameras film this fish from different angles, the images captured differ, as if there were two fish, and two fish will be seen on the monitors.
The monitor is analogous to the black box; everything in the black box consists of illusory false appearances similar to the outside world, but not necessarily entirely similar—there may be great error. The six consciousnesses do not know this and still think they have seen real appearances—this misapprehension may be enormous. If ten cameras were placed at different positions in the room, ten fish would be filmed; if one hundred cameras were placed, one hundred fish would be filmed, and ten or a hundred different fish would be seen on the monitors. When a certain number is reached, these fish from different angles combined together are one complete fish. When the Buddha spoke of setting up the Śūraṅgama mandala in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, placing an eight-faceted mirror in the practice site—that is this very principle.
XVII. Different Realms' Beings Have Different Supreme Faculties, So Their Tactile Experience Differs
Beings in the human realm all have a supreme faculty; beings in the animal realm also have a supreme faculty. Animals' physical bodies, like humans' physical bodies, are flesh bodies constituted of real four great element seeds, with a brain and a supreme faculty; when the supreme faculty develops lesions, animals too can become schizophrenic or mad. Because of karmic obstructions, animals' supreme faculties are inferior to humans', and their seeing of people and things involves great illusion, not seeing dharmas as they really are. But each kind of animal has its own class's special strengths: some animals have keen vision and can see at night; some have keen hearing; some have keen smell; some have keen taste; some have keen touch. But animals generally have very poor power of thinking with the mind consciousness and no logical analysis at all, mostly relying on the intuitive power of the manas, so they appear rather simple. Apart from the killing karma committed for satiation and survival, they hardly use their minds to create other evil karma—they are beings purely undergoing retribution.
Beings in the four formless heavens of the formless realm, because their environment of existence is formless, have no five form sense-objects and no physical body; therefore they have no supreme faculty, no inner five sense-objects or inner mental sense-objects, and no five consciousnesses—but they do have the mind consciousness, the manas, and the eighth consciousness. Their eighth consciousness and manas exist forever without perishing, and their mind consciousness also exists forever without perishing; what their mind consciousness cognizes is the subjectively imagined realm within meditative concentration—there is no external mental sense-object, only the subjectively imagined realm. If the mind consciousness ceased, only the eighth consciousness and manas would remain—that would be the realm of the cessation attainment (nirodha-samāpatti). Therefore the formless-realm devas' mind consciousness also exists forever without perishing; there is no distinction of day and night, no need for sleep or rest, forever in meditative concentration, facing the subjectively imagined realm.
XVIII. The World as Illusion Is the One True Dharma Realm
The worlds of the ten directions are just the one true dharma realm. Can we now understand what the one true dharma realm actually is? The Buddha-dharma is precisely for dissecting for us the false appearances and delusive appearances of the worldly realm; dissected to the end, all is empty—and what cannot be emptied is the formless, appearanceless true dharma realm. Holography, dome-screen movies, and so on all show that the world is illusory; everything and anything we contact is illusory.
