The Categories of Sound

Forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches are divided into numerous categories. As explained in the first volume of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, sounds are classified into several types, as are the objects of taste, the objects of touch, and the objects of smell. The objects of mind (dharmas) combined with these five types of objects are also simultaneously divided into several kinds.

Sounds include those produced by the Tathāgatagarbha within the being's own body, those arising from the contact between the physical body and the external world, those purely from the external environment, and those generated through interactions among sentient beings. Sounds produced by the being itself originate solely from its own Tathāgatagarbha. Sounds emanating from the body are also categorized into several types: those produced by conscious perception, thought, and contemplation; those generated during the absorption and digestion of food; those arising from internal organ pathologies or other internal conditions; those produced by the mental faculty regulating eating, chewing, and swallowing; those caused by gastrointestinal peristalsis; those from autonomous breathing; and those generated by the functioning of internal organs, such as the sound of the heartbeat.

Regardless of their origin, when these sounds fall upon one's own ear faculty and are discerned by ear consciousness and mental consciousness, they are all sounds within the black box, never extending beyond it. All are subject to birth, cessation, change, and impermanence; all are empty, and all are without self. All the six objects of sense that we can contact are like this. Only when the mind is not swayed by these sense objects, nor immersed within them, can there be true freedom and liberation.

When the mind can avoid falling into the realm of the six sense objects, it means it can leap beyond the realm, transcend the realm, and not be confined within it. Only then can one clearly perceive the realm, becoming lucid and free from delusion. Within the state of mental emptiness, there is one called "having a person but no environment" — this is the state of emptiness. However, this does not mean the mind is empty or the person is empty. One must further contemplate and investigate the mind and the person on this basis to sever the view of self. Merely emptying the realm does not constitute severing the view of self; the subjective conscious mind still remains unemptied. Many people inevitably have omissions when contemplating the five aggregates; their contemplation is incomplete. Consequently, they can only eliminate part of the self, not the entire self. And this remaining part of the self will gradually reassert itself as "I," causing the complete loss of spiritual merits.