Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (137)

How are illusory dharmas conjured up, and how are they false and unreal?

Cultivation means recognizing and investigating how these illusory appearances arise and how they are unreal. Does the event of applying fragrant paste in a dream actually exist? It cannot be denied that such an illusory false appearance exists; the false appearance is extremely insubstantial. But how does this insubstantial dharma arise? How is it conjured up? Only after investigating this thoroughly can one have great wisdom. After waking from a dream, everything done by the five aggregates is likewise false and illusory, no different from dreaming. So how were the five aggregates and the activities of the five aggregates conjured up? Only such continuous contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigation constitutes genuine cultivation. We need to cultivate more meditative concentration (samādhi) ourselves and investigate Chan deeply in order to realize these profound principles.

Apart from the Ālayavijñāna tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas are conjured up and are all false. But false dharmas have the functions of false dharmas, and when false dharmas function, that functioning is also false. Our five aggregates themselves are also false, yet the functions of the five-aggregate body are still needed. Sentient beings before the fourth fruit have no ability to eliminate the false appearance of the five aggregates, so they must make these false dharmas and false appearances purer and more at ease, in order to eradicate all suffering feelings. Even when sentient beings become Buddhas, they do not eliminate the false dharma of the five-aggregate material body; they merely make the five aggregates extremely sublime and extremely pure, without a single trace of defilement or ignorance, endowed with the thirty-two major marks and eighty minor marks (lakṣaṇa-vyañjana-sampad).