Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (27)

The Circumstances When the Flood Disaster Arrives

Original text: 乃至此界坏时。兴大黑云。三十二重。遍覆三千。大千世界。降霔洪雨。点大如象。昼夜倾注。相续不绝。如是时分。经五十劫。其水积满。上至梵世。大王。此外水界。从何所来。

Explanation: When the trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great thousand world) is about to be destroyed, thirty-two layers of black clouds descend in the sky, covering the entire trichiliocosm, and then raindrops as large as elephants pour down in torrents day and night without cease, continuing for a full fifty kalpas, until the water accumulates and fills the desire realm heavens, rising all the way up to the form realm heavens. Great King, where does this external water element come from?

The external water element is the water element outside the body, such as the moisture and wetness contained in cosmic space, mountains, rivers, and the great earth. For example, when the trichiliocosm is about to be destroyed and the flood disaster appears, great black clouds arise in the sky—thirty-two layers, extremely dense and heavy, wrapped together layer upon layer, on the verge of pouring down heavy rain. The thirty-two layers of black clouds spread throughout the entire trichiliocosm. The trichiliocosm contains one billion earths and one billion Mount Sumerus; the six heavens of the desire realm and the first dhyāna heaven each number one billion—countless celestial bodies—all covered by the black clouds. Then raindrops as large as elephants descend, pervading the empty space of the entire trichiliocosm, and the heavens are all submerged.

By that time we humans would long since be gone; the earth would already have been destroyed. The fire disaster would already have destroyed humanity and the desire realm heavens. In the desire realm there would be no humans and no living beings; from the earth up through the six heavens of the desire realm there would be only empty space, and rain would fall even in that empty space. The rain would fall for fifty kalpas—one kalpa counted as a small kalpa being sixteen million eight hundred thousand years, so fifty kalpas would be eight hundred forty million years. The rainwater would submerge even the empty space, flooding all the way up to the first dhyāna heaven and the second dhyāna heaven. Such is the destruction of the world. All this water belongs to the external water element. When the water comes, it has no dwelling place, and when the water recedes, where does it recede to? Wherever such a vast amount of water recedes to becomes a problem—wherever it goes, it submerges that place.