Chapter 1: Four Dream Metaphors (1) Selected Lectures on the Sutra of the Meeting of Father and Son

Volume Seventeen The Chapter on the Distinction of the Six Elements, Part Two of Twenty-Six

Chapter One The Four Dream Similes

Original text: 佛言大王。譬如有人。于睡梦中。闻妙乐声。心生适悦。是人觉已。忆念梦中。美妙音乐。是实有不。王曰不也。佛言大王。于意云何。是人所梦。执以为实。是智者不。王曰。不也世尊。何以故。梦中毕竟。无有乐声。何况复有。生适悦耶。当知是人。徒自疲劳。都无有实。

Explanation: The Buddha said to King Śuddhodana: Great King, suppose there is a person who, while sleeping and dreaming, hears the sound of wonderful music and feels a comfortable and delightful sensation in his mind. After this person wakes up, he keeps recalling the wonderful music in the dream. Was what was heard in the dream truly existent? King Śuddhodana said: No, World-Honored One. The Buddha said: Great King, what do you think? If this person takes what he dreamed as truly existent, is he a wise person? King Śuddhodana said: This person has no wisdom, World-Honored One. Why is this said? Because in the dream there is ultimately no sound of music at all, let alone the comfortable and delightful feeling arising in this person's mind. Therefore, one should know that this person merely wearies and exhausts his own mind in vain; there is nothing actually existent.

Hearing a wonderful sound and feeling very comfortable and happy in the mind—this is actually the same as dreaming; both are illusory transformations without reality. Hearing wonderful music in a dream and feeling happy in the mind is even more illusory and unreal. A dreamscape is a subjectively imagined realm, a realm conjured up through the grasping of the manas's imputed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva). Relying on the manas's craving and attachment, the Ālayavijñāna directly transforms realms of dharma-dusts out of the karmic seeds for the manas to cognize. Since the manas cannot perform detailed cognition, it causes the mind consciousness to appear and cognize together with it; thereupon the mind consciousness directs attention, contact, feeling, perception, and volition toward the music sound, giving rise to sensations, finding it wonderful and pleasing to the ear, and the mind becomes joyful and happy. In all this, the manas is conjured up by the Ālayavijñāna, the dream music is conjured up by the Ālayavijñāna, and the mind consciousness is conjured up by the Ālayavijñāna; not a single dharma is real and imperishable—all are illusory and unreal, cannot be relied upon, and are neither the self nor possessed by the self.

After waking, the dream music vanishes without a trace; the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) also ceases, and its pleasant feeling no longer exists—not a single dharma can be taken as real. Hearing wonderful music, sounds of praise, and beloved people and things in a dream is a delightful dream, but after waking there is nothing at all. Although these phenomena exist in the dream, they are all illusory, false, and unreal. If a person takes the people and things he dreamed of as real, believes the dream he had at night is real, and from time to time fantasizes about it and recalls it, constantly giving rise to attachment and craving, and remains immersed in the dream realm unwilling to come out, this person is truly foolish and without wisdom. Taking the dream as real while dreaming is already delusion and inversion; still taking it as real after waking is even more inverted.

Some people with cultivation know the dream is false while they are dreaming. When karmic conditions manifest in the dream and an evil deed is about to be committed, they know in their minds that this thing must not be done, and their minds do not flow along with the realm. For such people, the mind consciousness is awakened, and the manas has also awakened to a certain degree, able to take charge and not commit evil deeds; then after death they can likewise more or less take charge and not commit evil deeds. Those who commit evil deeds in dreams—their mind-consciousness cultivation is not yet effective. Therefore dreams can test whether sentient beings have cultivation, to what degree they have cultivated, whether the manas has been perfumed, whether it has strength, and whether they have assurance regarding birth and death.

In the dream there is actually no sound of music, yet one not only fails to alert oneself that one is dreaming, but even gives rise to joy, comfort, and craving in the mind—that is even more inverted. The event does not even exist, let alone the mental state; all is false and illusory. Taking the dream as real and constantly recalling and fantasizing about it is wearying oneself in vain; there is no real matter, and one merely drives one's own mind's thoughts and fantasies for nothing—it simply fatigues the mind, with no actual benefit to be gained. The minds of sentient beings in the six realms are likewise weary, constantly grasping at the realms of the six dusts, only to gain nothing at all, coming and going in emptiness. Delusive thoughts, hopes, wishes, and yearnings all weary the mind in vain. In fact they are useless; at the time of death it is still like drawing water with a bamboo basket—all for nothing.

Original text: 佛言大王。如是如是。愚夫异生。闻可意声。起于爱乐。而生染着。造作恶行。身三语四。意业三种。作是业已。刹那灭谢。是业灭已。不依东方。南西北方。四维上下。中间而住。最后边际。命根灭时。自分业报。皆悉现前。犹如梦觉。念梦中事。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, it is indeed so. Foolish ordinary beings (pṛthagjana) hear sounds they are fond of, and their minds give rise to fondness and delight, giving rise to the defiled mind of craving and attachment, and they create evil deeds: on the physical body they commit killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; in verbal karma they commit divisive speech, harsh speech, frivolous speech, and false speech; in mental karma, greed, hatred, and delusion. After these ten kinds of evil karmic actions of body, mouth, and mind are committed, they cease in a kṣaṇa. After they cease, the karmic actions do not abide in the east, south, west, or north, the four intermediate directions, up, down, or the middle; they vanish without a trace. But at the final limit, when the life faculty expires, the karmic retributions of what was created in this life all manifest, just like waking from a dream while the mind still dwells on the matters of the dream.

Original text: 大王。识为其主。业为攀缘。二种相因。初识生起。或趣地狱。或堕傍生。琰摩罗界。及阿修罗。若人若天。初识生已。各受其报。同分心品。相续随转。最后识灭。名为死蕴。最初识起。名为生蕴。

Explanation: Great King, the Ālayavijñāna is the master that gives birth to the five-aggregate body of the next life, and the karmic seeds and karmic power serve as its object of cognition. When these two—cause and condition—combine, the first consciousness of the next life is born. Sentient beings either proceed to the hell realm, or fall into the ghost realm, or are reborn into the animal realm, among the three evil realms; or they are reborn into the three good realms of the asura realm, the human realm, and the heavenly realm. When the first conscious mind is born, sentient beings begin to each receive their karmic retribution, and then the conscious mind on the same physical body continues to operate without interruption. When the conscious mind ceases at the end of life, the physical body is a corpse, called the aggregate of death; the conscious mind that first arises on the physical body is called the first consciousness, and the five aggregates of the physical body are called the aggregate of birth.

After karmic actions are carried out, they cease in a kṣaṇa. For example, when speaking, sounds appear one after another; one word appears and ceases, the next word appears and ceases again—this is behavioral action. Such behavioral action ceases in the very moment it occurs, ceasing and then arising again, arising and ceasing instant by instant. Although the karma has ceased, the karmic action is stored in the Ālayavijñāna as seeds. When a word is spoken, immeasurable consciousness seeds arise and cease in succession, completing that kṣaṇa's verbal action. If even one consciousness seed's stream is interrupted, the words cannot be spoken; therefore the dharma of language is a false dharma, not a true dharma.

After karmic actions cease, where do they go? There is no place they can abide. The Ālayavijñāna does not store these karmic actions either, because the Ālayavijñāna is formless and markless; it does not store bodily, verbal, and mental actions that have form and mark, but only stores formless, markless seeds. All karmic actions have no place to go and no place to come from. When speaking, the first sound comes out—from where does it come out? Is there a place where spoken sounds are stored? Certainly not. If there were, where would the sounds spoken throughout a sentient being's lifetime, or throughout beginningless kalpas, be stored? Go look for them—they simply cannot be found.

Some say that sounds can be recorded with a tape recorder and karmic actions with a video recorder, so that behavioral actions then have a place of existence. If so, let us take the tape recorder and video recorder apart to search: where are the sounds and the behavioral actions? Probably no matter how we search, we cannot find the sounds or the images. Yet the entire process of behavioral action, including mental karma, is recorded by something like a tape recorder and video recorder—this thing is the Ālayavijñāna. After being recorded, it exists as seeds; those with the recollection of past lives (pūrvanivāsānusmṛti) can retrieve and view it at any time, just like turning on a television to watch. This television, the Ālayavijñāna, can store any amount of audio and video programs; the programs from beginningless kalpas are all stored without being lost, and those with the recollection of past lives can play them out, regardless of whether the karmic seeds have been realized or the retribution has been fully received.

The karmic actions of body, mouth, and mind themselves have ceased; then at the time of death, in the very kṣaṇa before the last breath, the karmic retributions that should be received on the sentient being's physical body—the karma that was created—passes quickly by like a movie being played; the deeds of a whole lifetime flash past, and one understands the karma one has created: which were wholesome, which were unwholesome, what retribution one should receive—all becomes clear. But at that time one can no longer speak, unable to express anything, unable to tell one's family to help eliminate one's karma, perform deliverance rites, or make amends for one's transgressions, unable to tell one's family where one will go to receive retribution; when one can still speak, the karmic actions do not manifest. When the karmic retribution manifests at the time of death, one will feel that this whole life was a dream—it has passed, it is over; while alive in ordinary days one cannot experience the state of mind of that moment.

When one has cultivated the Buddhist path to the stage of the ten dedications, one will feel that not only is this life like a dream, but past lives are also a dream, and the next life is likewise a dream; all future lives until buddhahood are within the dream—life after life, one dreams of birth and dreams of death within dreams. When bodhisattvas perform buddha-work, delivering themselves and delivering sentient beings, it is all within the dream, all as unreal as dreaming—all is performing buddha-work within a dream.

Those who have not realized it have no genuine feeling; for now they can only understand it intellectually without experiencing it, and therefore do not know that since beginningless kalpas they have been dreaming one great dream of birth and death after another, which, linked together, is a continuous series of dreams—before buddhahood, one is within the great dream of birth and death. Sentient beings with segmented birth-and-death (pariccheda-maraṇa) are dreaming dream after dream; after segmented birth-and-death passes, there is still transformational birth-and-death (parināma-maraṇa), dreaming an especially subtle, long dream, likewise not yet fully awakened from the great dream of birth and death. Only upon becoming a Buddha does the great dream of birth and death completely end.

Original text: 大王。无有少法。从于此世。得至他世。所以者何。性生灭故。大王。身识生时。无所从来。灭无所去。彼业生时。无所从来。灭无所去。初识生时。无所从来。灭无所去。何以故。自性离故。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, there is not the slightest dharma that can transmigrate from this world to the next world. Why is this said? Because the self-nature of all dharmas is ceaselessly arising and ceasing, not permanently existing; when the five aggregates perish at the time of death, all dharmas will perish. Great King, when the body consciousness arises, it comes from nowhere; when it ceases, it goes nowhere. When karmic actions are created, they come from nowhere; when they cease, they go nowhere. When the first conscious mind of the next life arises, it comes from nowhere; when it ceases, it goes nowhere. Why do all dharmas have neither a place of coming nor a place of going? Because all dharmas are apart from all natures; the self-nature of all dharmas has no marks whatsoever; their intrinsic nature is empty and utterly unattainable. Dharmas that are empty and unattainable cannot possibly come or go.

Original text: 如是了知。身识身识空。自业自业空。初识初识空。若灭灭空。若生生空。了知业转。无有作者。亦无受者。但唯名相。分别显示。

Explanation: One should know the body consciousness in this way, knowing the emptiness of the body consciousness's self-nature; know the karmic actions created by one's own conscious mind in this way, knowing the emptiness of the karmic actions' self-nature; know the first consciousness in this way, knowing the emptiness of the first consciousness's self-nature; and know in this way that if all dharmas arise, their arising is empty, and if all dharmas cease, their ceasing is also empty. At the same time, one should know that in the creation and turning of karmic actions there is no doer and no receiver; all dharmas are merely discriminated and displayed on the level of false marks and names.

All dharmas of the five-aggregate world are subject to arising and ceasing: the conscious mind arises and ceases, the physical body arises and ceases, and all karmic actions created by the conscious mind and the physical body are likewise subject to arising and ceasing. These dharmas are all empty; seeds arise in a kṣaṇa and cease in a kṣaṇa, so the physical body and the conscious mind arise and cease kṣaṇa by kṣaṇa, illusory and unreal. Especially at the time of death, everything must vanish and perish; even the phenomena of kṣaṇa arising and ceasing will disappear without a trace. This further demonstrates the illusoriness of the five aggregates—not a single dharma can be carried to future lives.

In the creation of all karmic actions there is no doer, because the conscious mind has no autonomy—it is illusory; the physical body is illusory and has no autonomy; body and mind are both like illusions, therefore illusory body and mind cannot create karmic actions. In the turning of all karmic actions there is also no receiver of retribution, because the conscious mind is illusory, empty, and without self-nature; therefore the conscious mind is not the master receiving retribution. The physical body is illusory, empty, and without self-nature; it is also not the receiver of retribution. All material form is mark, and all conscious mind is name; neither has substance—they are merely false marks discriminated and displayed by the conscious mind.

The worldly things of wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep are likewise all empty and without self-nature, illusory and unattainable. When one is born in this life, one does not bring over the reputation of the previous life; even if one was a king or a minister in a past life, in this life not a bit of status and power is brought over. One's past-life family, relatives, and wealth—nothing is brought over; in this life one must strive from the beginning, start from scratch, and newly acquire wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep. When this life perishes, the wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep accumulated over a lifetime, along with family and relatives and everything else, will all vanish; not a single thing can be carried to the next life. Even the five aggregates and the conscious mind cannot transmigrate to future lives—except for the manas, the consciousness that takes charge—everything else vanishes completely.

At night when one falls asleep without dreams, the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind all cease; after ceasing, where do they go? When one wakes up, these conscious minds appear again—from where do they come? In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra the World-Honored One says that all dharmas are of the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. This Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra) does not speak of the tathāgatagarbha. If it were to speak of the tathāgatagarbha nature, some people, upon hearing it, could become enlightened; without speaking of the tathāgatagarbha nature, it can still enable sentient beings to realize the arhat's fruit of emptiness, benefiting all sentient beings. Some sūtras spoken by the Buddha can both enable people to realize the fruit and enable them to become enlightened—this depends on what indriya sentient beings possess. Those of Hīnayāna disposition can only awaken to the Hīnayāna emptiness; those of Mahāyāna disposition, while awakening to the Mahāyāna emptiness-nature that is the tathāgatagarbha, can also awaken to the Hīnayāna emptiness. With different indriya, the degree of awakening to the Path differs; it depends on the level of wisdom of the person hearing the Dharma.

When the Buddha speaks the Dharma, eighty-four thousand people may listen; because their wisdom differs, their degrees of understanding differ, the fruits they realize differ, and the retributions they obtain also differ. The Buddha speaks the Dharma without discriminatory mind, teaching the same Dharma to all sentient beings; because sentient beings' capacities differ, the fruits they obtain differ. Those who have committed great evil deeds, obstructed by evil karma, can only obtain a kind of rootless faith; those without the obstruction of evil karma can realize the Hīnayāna arhat fruit; those with sharp faculties can realize the Mahāyāna bodhisattva fruit; those with even better faculties can realize the patience with the non-arising of dharmas and obtain the fruit of a bodhisattva at one of the bhūmis. Thus it is said that the Buddha preaches the Dharma with a single sound, and sentient beings each gain understanding according to their kind. With the same listening to the Dharma, the degree of understanding and realization is each sentient being's own affair; the Buddha has no partiality.

The body consciousness itself is empty, coming and going in emptiness, unable to be grasped or retained, ceaselessly arising, ceasing, and transforming. The created karmic actions are empty, and the first consciousness is also empty. If the consciousness ceases, the phenomenon of ceasing itself is also empty—there is no truly existing dharma of cessation; who could extinguish it? There is no extinguisher. If the conscious mind arises, the dharma of birth is also empty; dharmas born in accordance with karmic seeds are all empty. Only the Ālayavijñāna is not empty: He contains the seeds of all dharmas and can produce all dharmas; He truly exists. Everything else is empty, false, illusory, and unreal.

"Knowing the turning of karma, there is no doer and no receiver." The turning of karma refers to the behavioral actions of sentient beings' body and mind, the operation of bodily, verbal, and mental actions—there is no person who creates them. For example, right now I am expounding the Dharma and speaking, but actually there is no one doing this. Who is doing it, who is speaking? You say it is "I"—what is called "I"? Is my body called "I", or is my conscious mind called "I"? These are all false marks. The five aggregates formed by the combination of the physical body and the conscious mind are even more false; there is no real self. The five aggregates are false marks, and the phenomenon of the five aggregates speaking is even more unreal—the person speaking is not "I" but a combination. Since it is a combination, it is aggregated by causes and conditions; when the conditions cease, the combination disperses and is gone; even the present combination is not truly existent.

For example, an army is composed of infantry, cavalry, and multiple arms of service, provisionally named "troops." After the troops are formed and go out to war and win, the king says: "Our troops are so brave, so valiant and invincible, so mighty." But is there a dharma called "our troops"? The troops are composed of multiple arms of service; a single arm is not called troops, and after being combined, even less can it be called troops—there is fundamentally no real dharma called "troops" in existence. The troops are an illusorily conjured false combination, not real. A dharma formed by the gathering of conditions is not a real dharma; when conditions disperse, the aggregate disperses. An aggregate that can gather and disperse is false and unreal. Two or more things gathered together are called one body; separated, none of the individual units is called one body. A is A, B is B—they are actually not one body but a false combination, and a false combination is not real.

The sentient being's five aggregates are also a combination, formed by combining the physical body with several kinds of minds of seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing. Only after the combination is there feeling, thoughts, cognition, discrimination, the aggregate of volitional formations, and the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of coming and going. If the conscious mind ceases, the five aggregates cannot be combined; if the body perishes, the five aggregates also cannot be combined; therefore the false phenomenon formed by combination is not real. In fact, there is no real person, a self of the five aggregates; a person is a thing put together from several causes and conditions, a false mark that disperses as soon as the causes and conditions cease. Take this chair: it is put together from nails, wood, and human labor. When its conditions run out, the chair falls apart and becomes wood; when the wood is gone, it becomes ash; finally even the ash is gone. Things formed by the combination of causes and conditions are all unreal like this; therefore there is no need to be attached to them.

The Hīnayāna teachings say that all worldly dharmas arise from causes and conditions, are all false dharmas, not real; whatever is combined by causes and conditions is a false dharma, subject to arising and ceasing, false and illusory. From the Mahāyāna perspective, why are there combinations of causes and conditions? All because of the dharma of the Ālayavijñāna. Apart from the Ālayavijñāna, this chair could not be combined either. When I use human labor to nail this chair together, if the functions of the Ālayavijñāna do not operate, the chair cannot be nailed together. Without the Ālayavijñāna, there would not even be wood, because trees cannot grow on their own; it all relies on the functional operations of the Ālayavijñānas of sentient beings with common karma. The growth of all things cannot be separated from the Ālayavijñāna.

If the creation of karmic actions has no doer, does the karmic retribution received have a receiver? Without a doer there is no receiver, because the five aggregates are a false combination without a subject—who receives the retribution? There is no self receiving suffering or pleasure; the body does not suffer, and the conscious mind does not suffer either; body and mind are both false, and the retribution of suffering itself is illusory. Therefore, in all dharmas there is no real doer and no receiver. No single dharma can be said to be a person, and even less is a combination of multiple dharmas a person—all are false bodies. Therefore the creation of all dharmas has no doer and no receiver. If one truly realizes this point, one is not merely enlightened—one may have reached the realm of a bodhisattva of the first bhūmi.

Since all dharmas have no real appearance and are all conjured up, it can be said that all dharmas are merely false discrimination of names and marks. For example, a name is given to a certain object to represent and display it; otherwise it could not be addressed or expressed. Naming this four-legged thing "chair," upon hearing "chair," the appearance of a chair appears in the mind; only when the name and mark appear can the chair be discriminated and displayed, facilitating communication and use among sentient beings.

Naming the flesh body falsely combined of the four great elements the "form body," people can then use language to express the state of the form body, facilitating recognition and communication. Naming the several consciousnesses on the form body eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness, and naming the master consciousness the manas consciousness, only then can the functions, operations, and states of these conscious minds be expounded and described, and sentient beings can express, display, and communicate. Without names and appearances, sentient beings could not communicate or live; giving a provisional name makes things easy. For example, if originally the towel had been named "bed sheet," then when sentient beings wanted to wipe their faces with a towel, they would tell their children, "Bring the bed sheet to wipe the face." As long as the habit forms and becomes fixed, whatever name was originally given does not matter—they are all just nouns, names and marks, without much actual significance.

Original text: 佛言大王。耳闻恶声。则生忧恼。如人梦中。亲爱别离。悲号啼哭。生大苦恼。于意云何。是人觉已。忆梦中事。是实有不。王曰不也。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, some people, upon hearing harsh sounds, give rise to sorrow, grief, suffering, and distress in their minds, just like someone who in a dream sees the parting of death from a beloved close relative and weeps and cries bitterly, feeling great anguish within. What do you think of this: after this person wakes up, he keeps recalling the matters of the dream—are the matters of the dream truly existent? King Śuddhodana replied: They are not truly existent.

Original text: 佛言大王。是人所梦。执以为实。为智者不。王曰。不也世尊。何以故。梦中亲爱。毕竟无有。何况复有。别离事耶。当知是人。徒自疲劳。都无有实。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, this person takes what he dreamed as truly existent—is he a wise person? King Śuddhodana replied: That person is not a wise person, World-Honored One. Why is this said? Because the loved ones in the dream ultimately do not exist; if there were also the matter of parting from loved ones, it would be even less real. Therefore this person expends his mental effort in vain on people and things that are not truly existent, wearying his mind to no benefit whatsoever.

Original text: 佛言大王。如是如是。愚夫异生。闻其恶声。则生忧恼。起于嗔心。造作嗔业。所谓身三语四。意业三种。造彼业已。刹那灭谢。是业灭已。不依东方。南西北方。四维上下。中间而住。最后边际。命根灭时。自分业报。皆悉现前。犹如梦觉。念梦中事。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, it is indeed so. Foolish ordinary beings, upon hearing harsh sounds, give rise to anguish in their minds; after hatred arises, they create karmic actions of hatred. These karmic actions manifest in body, mouth, and mind as three kinds of bodily karma, four kinds of verbal karma, and three kinds of mental karma. After these karmic actions are completed, they cease within a kṣaṇa. After the karmic actions cease, they do not abide in the east, south, west, or north, the four intermediate directions, up, down, or the middle. When the final lifespan is about to end, the karmic retributions of the deeds one has created all manifest, just like still dwelling on the matters of a dream after waking from it.

When sentient beings create karma, they all feel that neither spirits nor ghosts know, as if no one knew; but in fact it cannot be concealed from anyone—otherwise there would be no karmic retribution. First, one's own mind knows and makes a record; then the surrounding ghosts and spirits all know, and there are records in King Yama's court; the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Dharma-protecting deities all know; sentient beings with supernatural powers at the time all know, and when one later encounters sentient beings with supernatural powers, they will know too. As long as a karmic action is created, it is a dossier; this dossier is preserved until after buddhahood and will never disappear. Even after the retribution has been fully received and the karmic seeds have vanished, the dossier does not disappear; all sentient beings with supernatural powers can look it up.

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, the Ālayavijñāna is the master that gives birth to the five-aggregate body of the next life, and the karmic seeds serve as its object of cognition. When this cause and condition combine, the first consciousness of the next life is born; then sentient beings proceed to the hell realm, or fall into the ghost realm, or are reborn into the animal realm, the three evil realms; or they are reborn into the three good realms of the asura realm, the human realm, and the heavenly realm. When the first conscious mind is born, sentient beings begin to each receive their karmic retribution, and then the conscious mind on the same physical body continues to operate without interruption. When the conscious mind ceases at the end of life, the physical body is a corpse, called the aggregate of death; the conscious mind that first arises on the physical body is called the first consciousness, and the five aggregates of the physical body are called the aggregate of birth.

When the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind arise in the next life, it is because the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind in this life created karmic actions and the seeds do not perish; this determines that there must be a next life's five aggregates to receive the karmic retribution. After the first consciousness arises on the five-aggregate body, this person either arrives in the hells, or in the animal realm, or in the asura realm, or is reborn again as a human, or ascends again to the heavens—transmigrating through the six realms according to the wholesome and unwholesome karma sentient beings have created.

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, there is not the slightest dharma that can transmigrate from this world to the next world. Why is this said? Because the self-nature of all dharmas is ceaselessly arising and ceasing, not permanently existing; when the five aggregates perish at the time of death, all dharmas will perish. Great King, when the body consciousness arises, it has no place of coming; when it ceases, it has no place of going. When karmic actions are created, they have no place of coming; when they cease, they have no place of going. When the first conscious mind of the next life arises, it has no place of coming; when it ceases, it has no place of going. Why do all dharmas have neither a place of coming nor a place of going? Because all dharmas are apart from all natures; the self-nature of all dharmas has no marks whatsoever; their intrinsic nature is empty and utterly unattainable.

Original text: 如是了知。身识身识空。自业自业空。初识初识空。若灭灭空。若生生空。了知业转。无有作者。亦无受者。但唯名相。分别显示。

Explanation: One should know the body consciousness in this way, knowing the emptiness of the body consciousness's self-nature; know the karmic actions created by one's own conscious mind in this way, knowing the emptiness of the karmic actions' self-nature; know the first consciousness in this way, knowing the emptiness of the first consciousness's self-nature; and know in this way that if all dharmas arise, their arising is empty, and if all dharmas cease, their ceasing is empty. At the same time, one should know that in the creation and turning of karmic actions there is no doer and no receiver; all dharmas are merely discriminated and displayed on the level of false marks and names.

When all dharmas arise there is no place of coming, and when they cease there is no place of going—why? Because the intrinsic nature is apart from all dharmas. When the first consciousness arises there is no place of coming, and when it ceases there is no place of going; the created karmic actions have no place of coming and no place of going. The dharmas of creating karma and receiving retribution are also false; although false, suffering can still be felt; although the feeling of anguish is felt, it is a false, illusory feeling.

During the arising and ceasing of all these dharmas, the Ālayavijñāna constantly follows the five-aggregate body, playing the leading role behind the scenes. Because He is unborn and undying, a truly existent dharma—without Him, all dharmas and all illusory marks would no longer exist. He is the mind-substance of ultimate reality; illusory-mark dharmas exist depending on ultimate reality. Among the myriad dharmas, apart from the Ālayavijñāna, which is the dharma of ultimate reality and is real, all other dharmas are false. Going to the hells to receive retribution is also false. If in the hells one truly knows the hells are empty and illusory, the hell karma is extinguished and one emerges from the hells. If one does not know the hells are false and believes the hells truly exist, with ignorance not extinguished, one continues to suffer in the hells. When sentient beings truly realize that karmic actions are false and all dharmas are false, the karma of the three evil realms is extinguished. Without such realization, the three evil realms remain truly existent in the mind, and one must still go to the three evil realms to receive retribution.

At enlightenment one realizes that the five-aggregate body is empty, or realizes that all dharmas are empty, all conjured up by the Ālayavijñāna, with only the Ālayavijñāna not empty. In this way the karma of the three evil realms is also extinguished, and one does not descend into the three evil realms to receive evil retribution. If one believes the karma of the three evil realms is not empty but truly exists, one cannot realize the fruit nor become enlightened. Knowing the karmic actions of the three evil realms are false, the three evil realms cease to exist and the karmic actions no longer function; the karma of the three evil realms is merely transformed into retribution in the human world, where one suffers in the human world.