The Old in the Black Box

The black box matures gradually along with the progressive maturation of the physical body. The five external sense faculties, as one ages, continuously mature and then age, stiffen, and degenerate; likewise, the five supreme faculties within the black box gradually age and degenerate with advancing years. The seeds of the four great elements are constantly being renewed, and the functions of the five supreme faculties go from delicate frailty at the outset, to strength, and then to stiffness and degeneration. Among these, the transmitting nerves of the five sense faculties gradually become less sensitive, and the particles of the four great elements they transmit gradually diminish and become distorted and deformed. Consequently, the six consciousnesses become slow in discerning the inner six sense objects, their discrimination gradually becomes blurred and indistinct, and their responses become sluggish.

What the six consciousnesses discern about the condition of one's own body faculty is not the actual condition of one's original physical body, but rather the images formed within the black box of the supreme faculties from the original physical body—combinations of various particles such as electrons, atoms, and neutrons. It is an illusory false body, not the original real, three-dimensional physical object. Therefore, there is no need at all to grasp at the physical body; these are merely combinations of bioelectric signals, with no body and no five gross physical sense faculties of the body. If there were a real physical body, then various superknowledges—such as passing through mountains or entering water—should not exist.