Types of Sounds

Form, sound, smell, taste, and touch are divided into many kinds. The Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, in its first volume, discussed this: sounds are divided into several kinds, taste objects are also divided into several kinds, and the same is true of touch objects and smell objects. Mental objects, combined with the five kinds of sense objects, are likewise divided into several kinds at the same time.

Some sounds are produced by the tathāgatagarbha within sentient beings' own bodies; some are produced by the contact between the material body and the external world; some are sounds from the external world alone; and some are produced by sentient beings interacting with one another. The sounds of sentient beings themselves are produced solely by their own tathāgatagarbha. The sounds produced within the body are also divided into several kinds: those produced by the mind consciousness's initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra) and deliberation; those produced during the process of food absorption and digestion; those produced by pathological changes in the internal organs; those produced by the manas regulating eating, chewing, and swallowing; those produced by gastrointestinal peristalsis; those produced by autonomous breathing; and those produced by the functioning of the internal organs, such as the sound of the heartbeat.

No matter how these sounds come into being, once they fall into one's own ear faculty and are discerned by the ear consciousness and the mind consciousness, they are all sounds within the black box, not beyond the black box; they are all subject to arising, ceasing, and change, not lasting long; they are all empty, and all without self. The same is true of all the six sense objects we can come into contact with. Only when the mind is not turned by these object realms, and does not fall into these object realms, can there be freedom and liberation.

When the mind does not fall into the realms of the six sense objects, it is able to leap outside of the realms, transcend the realms, and not be confined within them; only then can one see the realms clearly, and be lucid and unconfused. Among the states of the mind being empty, there is one called "someone present but no realm" — this is an empty realm, but the mind and the person are not yet empty. On this basis, one must further engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) to contemplate the mind and contemplate the person, in order to eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa). Merely emptying the realm is not the eradication of the view of self, for the subjective conscious mind "I" has not yet been emptied. Many people, in contemplating the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), inevitably leave something out; their contemplation is incomplete, so they can only eradicate a part of the self, not the whole of the self. And that part of the self will gradually again be taken as self, and all merit will be lost.