Death in the Black Box

After old age and illness, when the four great elements fall into severe disorder and can no longer be harmonized, the body becomes unusable. How does it become unusable? The functions of the body's five gross physical sense organs age and can no longer properly receive and transmit the six outer sense-objects; the neural conduction system ages and can no longer properly receive and transmit the bioelectric signals coming from the five gross physical sense organs; and the brain and the black box of the supreme faculty age and become rigid, unable to properly receive the bioelectric signals transmitted by the nervous system, and thus cannot integrate these signals to form the virtual inner representation—the inner six sense-objects—similar to the outer representation.

When there are no inner six sense-objects in the supreme faculty, the conditions for the arising of the six consciousnesses are incomplete, and the six consciousnesses cannot arise to discern the inner six sense-objects. Sentient beings then lose the function of awareness. The manas, having lost its right-hand and left-hand aides, becomes powerless with regard to all dharmas, and will decide to leave the body; thus death occurs and it enters the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava).

Once the black box is no longer functional, the faculties and objects do not make contact, the six consciousnesses cannot manifest, bodily, verbal, and mental actions cannot appear, and the activities of the five-aggregate body will cease. When the manas feels it can do nothing, the five-aggregate body will inevitably die. It can be seen that the black box of the supreme faculty is extremely important: even if the five gross physical sense organs are perfectly normal and the transmitting nerves are also perfectly normal, if the black box is abnormal, the manas cannot be aware of the six sense-object realms, and will helplessly choose death—in fact, it is forced rather than a choice.

Why is the black box so important? It is because the black box is a venue—a venue where the six faculties, six sense-objects, and six consciousnesses converge and connect, a venue where the five aggregates are active. Here the inner representation of the great thousand worlds can be generated, and here the six consciousnesses can be generated; the six consciousnesses can contact and discern the virtual great thousand world, having cognition, being able to feel and experience, and being able to enjoy and make use of the virtual six sense-object realms—in common parlance, this is called being alive, or called living. Once one can no longer be alive, or can no longer live, the manas will inevitably go searching anew for a place where it can be alive, and begin a new life.