The Karma of Sentient Beings Can Change the Essential Realm.

However, the immutability of the essential realm is only a temporary phenomenon; sooner or later it will change. Because the essential realm is also a dharma that arises and ceases through causes and conditions—a dharma subject to arising, ceasing, and change—when causes and conditions change, the essential realm will inevitably change. When causes and conditions do not change, if sentient beings pay attention to and have hopes regarding the essential realm, and the manas' wishes and aspirations join in, the essential realm will inevitably undergo change. When the minds of the many are sincere and all beings are of one heart, this will inevitably cause the essential realm to shift in accordance with the minds of the multitude, and it may even shift in accordance with the mind of a single person of the Way.

Take the earth, for example. Before human beings came into existence, although it existed in a state of arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing, at that time its existence changed very slowly. The delicious earth-fine cream on the surface of the ground floated on the earth's surface for many kalpas, sweet, delicious, and fertile, neither diminishing nor becoming thinner. When others descended upon the earth and became human beings, their craving for the earth-fine cream caused it to become thinner and thinner and less and less, until finally it no longer grew, and in the end it became extinct—this was the result of the interference of sentient beings' karmic power. After its extinction, humans began to cultivate the delicious rice paddy, but in the end, because sentient beings craved it without letting go, the rice paddy disappeared, and even its name could no longer be found. Such is the magnitude of sentient beings' karmic power.