The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Volume Three: The Unreality of the Earth Element

Original text:阿难。如汝所言。四大和合。发明世间。种种变化。阿难。若彼大性。体非和合。则不能与。诸大杂和。犹如虚空。不和诸色。若和合者。同于变化。始终相成。生灭相续。生死死生。生生死死。如旋火轮。未有休息。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Ānanda, it is indeed just as you said—it is because of the combination of the four great elements that the various changes of the world appear. Ānanda, if the essential nature of the four great elements were not combinative, then the great elements could not be mixed and combined with one another, just as empty space cannot combine with all material form. If the four great elements could combine, they would be subject to the same changes: beginning and end mutually completing one another, arising and ceasing continuing on—birth, death, death, birth, birth after birth, death after death—like a whirling fire-wheel that never has any rest.

Original text:阿难。如水成冰。冰还成水。汝观地。粗为大地。细为微尘。至邻虚尘。析彼极微。色边际相。七分所成。更析邻虚。即实空性。

Explanation: Ānanda, just as water can freeze into ice and ice can melt back into water, you should observe the mark of earth: the coarse is the great earth, the fine is dust-motes, down to the extremely fine dust-motes that border on empty space. Analyze those extremely subtle material dust-motes that approach the boundary of empty space—the mark of form at its edge—into seven parts; analyze them further, and they come even closer to empty space, at which point it can be seen that dust-motes truly possess the nature of emptiness.

Original text:阿难。若此邻虚。析成虚空。当知虚空。出生色相。汝今问言。由和合故。出生世间。诸变化相。汝且观此。一邻虚尘。用几虚空。和合而有。不应邻虚。合成邻虚。又邻虚尘。析入空者。用几色相。合成虚空。

Explanation: Ānanda, if these dust-motes bordering on empty space can be analyzed into empty space, then you should know that empty space can give rise to the marks of form. You now ask that, because of combination, the various changing marks of the world are produced. Observe this single dust-mote bordering on empty space: with how many portions of empty space combined does it come into existence?

Original text:若色合时。合色非空。若空合时。合空非色。色犹可析。空云何合。汝元不知。如来藏中。性色真空。性空真色。清净本然。周遍法界。随众生心。应所知量。循业发现。世间无知。惑为因缘。及自然性。皆是识心。分别计度。但有言说。都无实义。

Explanation: The Buddha said: If the marks of form could combine, the combined form would not be empty space; if empty space could combine, the combined space would not be form. Form can still be analyzed, but how could empty space be combined? Ānanda, you fundamentally do not know that within the tathāgatagarbha, the nature of form is true emptiness, and the nature of emptiness is truly form. Form and emptiness are both intrinsically pure, pervading throughout the dharmadhātu, manifesting in accordance with the minds of sentient beings and in response to the extent of what they should know, manifesting according to their karma. People of the world are ignorant and deludedly take form and emptiness to be produced by causes and conditions, or to appear spontaneously. All of this is the discrimination and calculation of sentient beings' consciousness-mind; whatever they may say, none of it has any real meaning.

Here the World-Honored One negates the notion that form can generate empty space and that empty space can generate form. If material dust-motes could be subdivided into empty space, then empty space would be composed of form—with how many dust-motes of form would empty space be composed? If dust-motes could compose empty space, then empty space would no longer be empty space. Likewise, if empty space could compose dust-motes of form, then with how much empty space could a dust-mote be composed? If empty space could compose dust-motes, then empty space would not be empty space and dust-motes would not be dust-motes; both would lose their self-nature.

If dust-motes of form could combine into empty space, empty space would be form; if empty space could combine into form, form would be empty space. How could empty space and the marks of form possibly combine into and transform into each other? They stand in a relationship of equal opposition: where this exists, that does not; where that exists, this does not. Form is something with marks formed by the seeds of the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—whereas empty space is a dharma without marks. Therefore form cannot transform into empty space, and even less can empty space transform into form.

Form is produced by the tathāgatagarbha; it does not come about through transformation and combination from empty space. Empty space is also produced by the tathāgatagarbha; it is not generated through the analysis of form. The World-Honored One made this very clear in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: all things and phenomena are produced by the tathāgatagarbha and all originate from the tathāgatagarbha. Wherever there is form, there is no emptiness; where there is emptiness, there is certainly no form. Where there is no form, emptiness manifests; thus emptiness is revealed by means of form. In the final summary, it is concluded that all is the nature of the tathāgatagarbha; therefore form and emptiness are non-dual.