Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (9)

Original text:大王。又此地界。欲坏灭时。或为火焚。或为水漂。或为风吹。譬然酥油。其焰炽盛。乃至灰烬。不复可见。若为水漂。犹如以盐。投于水中。须臾消散。若为毗岚。猛风所吹。彼时三千大千世界。悉皆散坏。净尽无余。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, when the earth element is about to be destroyed, it may be burned by great fire, submerged by great water, or blown apart by great wind. When the earth element is burned by great fire, it is like lighting a ghee lamp: the flame blazes fiercely until the ghee is completely burned up, leaving not even ashes to be seen. When the earth element is swept away by great water, it is like throwing salt into water—in a moment the salt dissolves and disappears. If the earth element is destroyed by the fierce vairambhaka wind, at that time the trichiliocosm—the three-thousandfold great thousand worlds—will all disintegrate and be completely destroyed, without remainder.

When the earth element is about to be destroyed, how is it destroyed? The first way is destruction by great fire. When the fire calamity comes, it burns all the way up to the First Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm, and everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone. The six heavens of the desire realm and their heavenly palaces are gone, Mount Sumeru is gone, the four great continents are gone, the earth is gone. When the world is about to perish, once the great fire ignites, the earth is burned out of existence. How does the earth disappear? First two suns appear, then three, four, five, six suns, and finally seven suns come out, and everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven is burned to destruction. When two suns appear, all life on earth vanishes without a trace—needless to say with seven suns. With just one sun, we can hardly bear it when summer arrives; if two suns came out, could life still exist? When seven suns come out, the four great oceans all dry up, the earth catches fire directly and is burned out of existence. The fire rises up to the heavens, Mount Sumeru is burned away, the entire six heavens of the desire realm are burned away, and the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone too. All gold, silver, and jewels are long since burned away; the seven treasures, which are even harder than gold and silver, are likewise burned to nothing.

The second is the water calamity. After everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven has been burned away, torrential rain falls from the sky, each raindrop as large as an elephant, falling for seven days and seven nights. The water rises all the way to the Second Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm. The six heavens of the desire realm are gone, the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone, and the water rises further to the Second Dhyāna Heaven, submerging the Second Dhyāna Heaven entirely. Such is the power of the water calamity—the devas of the Second Dhyāna Heaven and below cannot escape it.

The third calamity is the wind calamity. When the great wind blows, it blows all the way up to the Third Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm, blowing the Third Dhyāna Heaven out of existence. If the earth has not been burned away by the great fire, it can be instantly scattered by the great wind. All six heavens of the desire realm are blown apart, leaving not even a trace. Whether composed of the seven treasures or a hundred treasures, everything can be blown apart; no matter how hard something is, it cannot exist, cannot endure—such is the magnitude of this wind's power. There is only one thing that fire cannot burn, water cannot submerge, and wind cannot blow away: the tathāgatagarbha.

After the three calamities pass, only the Fourth Dhyāna Heaven and above remain. The Fourth Dhyāna Heaven has four levels, and together with the four formless heavens—the heavens of the formless realm—none of these heavenly realms can be reached by any calamity. Because from the Fourth Dhyāna upward there is neutral feeling with purity of mindfulness (upekṣā-vedanā), without thoughts, the mind abides in a state of tranquility (praśama), and thus no calamity can befall it. In the meditative state of the Third Dhyāna there is still breathing, and breathing is wind, so it can attract the wind calamity; the wind calamity can rise to the Third Dhyāna Heaven and destroy even it. After the entire trichiliocosm—the three-thousandfold great thousand worlds—has completely disintegrated, there is silence without remainder, destroyed so thoroughly that not even a speck of dust can be found, nothing at all remains. Therefore it is said that the world is indeed false and illusory.