Illusions Caused by Various Lenses

Magnifying glasses, concave and convex lenses, funhouse mirrors, and microscopes operate on the same principle as nearsighted glasses and reading glasses: they all serve to alter the outer object-aspect of material sense-objects (rūpa-viṣaya) transmitted by the tathāgatagarbha, and then these altered material sense-objects are transmitted into the gross faculty and the supreme faculty (indriya). In this way, the inner material sense-object within the black box is formed through successive transformations by multiple layers of media. So what reality is there in the material sense-objects that sentient beings perceive through these lenses? How great is the discrepancy from the essential realm—the original external realm? What substantial appearance is there to touch and make use of?