Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (50)

What Is the External Space Element

Original text:若时业缘。引生六处。诸处生已。围绕空界。此说名入。内空界数。然彼空界。从何所来。又若方处。外所显现。离质碍性。名外空界。

Explanation: When karmic conditions ripen, the tathāgatagarbha gives rise to the six sense objects: form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas. After the six sense objects have arisen, they are surrounded within the space element; these space elements all belong to the category of the internal space element. But where do these space elements come from? Furthermore, if in places outside the physical body, what manifests is devoid of the nature of material obstruction and is not material form—that is the external space element.

The place outside the body where there is no matter is empty space, called the external space element. The external space element is boundlessly vast; the worlds of the ten directions are all established within empty space. However many buddha-lands one wishes to establish, they can all be established. Why is this so? Because empty space does not truly exist. If empty space truly existed, it would have fixed limits and boundaries and could not be boundless, and the establishment of buddha-lands could not exceed that range. But empty space has no range, so the trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great world system) can be established at will: when all sentient beings become buddhas, each person has one trichiliocosm, and the worlds neither overlap nor become crowded. Because empty space has no boundary and is not material form—it is without any thing—it can therefore contain all things. Such is the external space element.