Lecture Notes on the Pitr-putra Samāgama Sūtra (59)

The Intrinsic Nature of the Eye Faculty

Is Utterly Unattainable

When the earth element is pure, the eye faculty it constitutes is pure, because the fundamental material being pure, the resultant material form is pure. If the water, fire, and wind elements are all pure, the eye faculty they constitute is pure, for the fundamental material being pure, the resultant material form is pure. Outwardly, it appears as if the material form of the eye faculty manifests, exhibiting the characteristics of material form. Yet material form is so illusory and insubstantial. The seeds of the four primary elements flow forth bit by bit, the eye faculty takes shape gradually, manifesting from emptiness where nothing existed before. Its fundamental material consists of seeds that are formless, markless, and empty in nature. These seeds flow forth from the Tathagatagarbha. Therefore, the essence of the eye faculty is the Tathagatagarbha, entirely belonging to the Tathagatagarbha. Hence, the intrinsic nature of the eye faculty is utterly unattainable.

Because the Tathagatagarbha is intrinsically pure — neither born nor destroyed, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither coming nor going — the four primary elements it emits are pure. Consequently, the intrinsic nature of the eye faculty constituted from them is also pure — neither born nor destroyed, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither coming nor going. It lacks self-sovereignty and lacks any capacity for creation. All are attributes of the Tathagatagarbha. There is not the slightest existence of an eye faculty to be attained.