Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (57)

What is the eye base (cakṣur-āyatana)?

Original text: 大王。云何眼处。谓四大种。地界水界。火界风界。所造净色。若地界清净。则眼处清净。若水火风界清净。则眼处清净。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, what is the eye base? The eye base is the pure form faculty constructed from the four great seeds—the earth element, the water element, the fire element, and the wind element. If the earth element is pure, then the eye base constructed from it is pure; if the water element, fire element, and wind element are pure, then the eye base constructed from their combination is pure.

The eye faculty is a material form composed of the four great seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind combined together, containing the hardness of earth, the wetness of water, the warmth of fire, and the mobility of wind. The eye faculty includes both the gross physical eye organ on the face and the supreme eye faculty at the back of the brain, all of which are formed from the four great seeds.

The four great seeds are seeds intrinsically existing within the tathāgatagarbha. When the causes and conditions for producing the eye faculty mature, the tathāgatagarbha transmits the four great seeds outward, and the eye faculty is formed. Both the inner and outer eye faculties are gradually formed within the mother's womb. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One described the human eye faculty as having the shape of a grape cluster—that is the eye base.

The four great seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind within the tathāgatagarbha are originally pure, without defilement, without the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. These four great seeds combine in certain proportions to form the eye faculty; when the proportions of the combined seeds differ, the material forms produced also differ. Because the four great seeds are pure, the eye faculty formed from them is pure, without the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and without defilement. However, the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, which arise depending on the eye faculty as a condition, do have defilement and afflictions. The eye faculty itself has no defilement, nor does it have joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, because the eye faculty has no mental activity.