Lectures on the Scripture of the Father and Son Collection (31)

The Illusory Arising and Ceasing of the Water Element

When the waters of the four great oceans first formed, where did the water come from? It had no source. Ultimately, when the waters of the four great oceans largely vanish through evaporation, where does the evaporated water go? Does it go to the void? If the void could contain so much water, it would no longer be called the void but the great ocean. Therefore, when the ocean water disappears, it has nowhere to go. The water element is precisely this illusory: it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, arising from emptiness and returning to emptiness. The entire three thousand great thousand worlds are likewise illusory; the Buddha lands of the ten directions are also this illusory. They arise and cease, cease and arise, all ungraspable. The nature of the water element is fundamentally empty when it arises and empty when it ceases—from emptiness to emptiness, utterly devoid of inherent existence.