Does matter really have weight?

When facing an object many times heavier than one's own body weight, if in an extremely urgent situation one forgets the weight of the object, or has no time to consider its weight, and focuses solely on rescuing the person beneath it, that person can instantly push the object away. But after the person is rescued, upon seeing that what was pushed was actually such a heavy thing, the mind is startled—and at that point, no matter how hard one tries, the object cannot be pushed even a little bit. Why is this so?

In the urgency of the moment, the mind consciousness loses its power of deliberation and does not tell the manas that the object is extremely heavy. The manas does not consider the question of the object's weight; it merely makes the mental engagement and resolves to push the object away to save the person—and as a result, the manas achieves its goal. Afterwards, when the mind consciousness looks at the object, it is startled, comes to know the object's weight, and tells the manas. Once the manas knows this, it knows that by its own strength it could never push away such a heavy object, and so the tathāgatagarbha will no longer assist the manas.

All dharmas are created by the mind—created by the tathāgatagarbha, created by the manas, and also created by the mind consciousness. As long as the mind consciousness and the manas wish to create some dharma, the tathāgatagarbha will supply the raw materials and produce the product. The prerequisite is that it accords with karmic force. Without meditative concentration (samādhi), the mind consciousness runs wild with scattered thoughts and gives blind commands, and the manas, upon hearing them, is obstructed. In meditative concentration, the power of the mind consciousness is weak, and whatever the manas itself wants to do, it can do, and it will succeed. How foolish are those who only know how to grasp at the mind consciousness! Those who circle around and around the mind consciousness, not knowing to grasp the master, the trunk, the key point, the root—how shallow their wisdom must be. During hypnosis, when the mind consciousness is controlled and prevented from giving blind commands, the manas can be utilized to dig out many secrets. Changing the manas is quite easy—returning to the past, going to the future, all are no problem.

No matter how heavy a material substance is, even as large as Mount Sumeru, as heavy as Mount Sumeru, it is still material form composed of the four great seeds. The four great seeds have no weight, so the material form composed of them should also have no weight. Sentient beings, obscured by ignorance, do not know this principle; due to karmic force, they feel the weight of material form. A person with profound meditative concentration, having subdued ignorance and opened the power of the mind, will not be hindered or constrained by material things or their weight, and can handle material things at will—lifting, shattering, combining, passing through, and so on—and can also manifest material things at will, able to play with the four great elements and play with material form.