Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Twelve)

The solidity of the inner earth element is illusory and unreal

Original text: 云何说此。为坚硬性。大王。此坚硬性。相似而立。毕竟此身。溃烂散灭。唯冢圹中。是所归趣。彼坚硬性。从何所来。亦非四方。上下而去。大王。此内地界。应如是知。

Explanation: Why is it said that the earth element has solidity? Great King, this solidity is also a similar, provisionally established designation; it is not truly solid and imperishable, never ceasing. Because this material body will in the end decay and disperse, and finally be abandoned in the wilderness and the graveyard, where the four great elements disperse without a trace. Where does the solidity within the material body come from? It has no place of coming, nor any place of going; it does not come from the four directions, the four intermediate directions, up, or down of the material body, nor does it go to the four directions, the four intermediate directions, up, or down. Such is the earth element within this material body—it has no place of coming and no place of going. (This is the Hīnayāna teaching; the World-Honored One did not explicitly state that the Ālayavijñāna and the tathāgatagarbha output the seeds of the four great elements to form the material body, and that in the end the seeds of the four great elements within the material body return to the Ālayavijñāna tathāgatagarbha.)

Where does the earth nature within this kalala (fertilized egg) come from? It comes from nowhere, and after it perishes there is also no destination to which it returns. When the material body dies and the earth nature perishes, where does the earth nature go? There is no place it goes to. Thus the earth nature is empty, illusory, and unreal; therefore the solidity of the body is not real. The solidity has existed from the very beginning of the kalala, and then becomes the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, sinews, and bones of the material body; after death, the earth nature disperses, the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, sinews, and bones are all destroyed, and the solidity has nowhere to go, nor does it go into empty space—when it came, there was no place it came from; it simply came like this.

But in reality, it is all transmitted out from the tathāgatagarbha; the Buddha had not yet spoken of this point. This is how the inner earth element comes about: because of the union of man and woman, the manas enters the womb into the fertilized egg, and when the kalala is produced, the earth element arises. Since the earth element is thus subject to arising and ceasing, illusory and unreal, we should not cling to the earth element, and should not take the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, sinews, bones, and the material body as the self, as real and imperishable.