Discourse on the Pitaputra Samagama Sutra, LXIV

The Eye Faculty is Ultimately Empty; Neither Past Nor Future States Can Be Attained

If the eye faculty were not empty, it would exist perpetually, without birth and without cessation. It would possess self-mastery, yet there would be no dharma capable of governing its birth and extinction. However, the eye faculty is precisely the opposite. If the eye faculty can be produced and also cease involuntarily—if it must cease whenever conditions no longer sustain it—then it is empty and illusory. How is the eye faculty formed? The element of earth is added, the element of water is added, the element of fire is added, the element of wind is added—these four elements blend together. The seeds of the four elements combine in specific proportions, arranging and assembling themselves, coalescing to form the physical body of the eye faculty. When karmic conditions dissipate, the four elements scatter, and the eye faculty vanishes. It comes from emptiness and returns to emptiness, devoid of intrinsic nature, utterly unattainable.

We should not develop attachment or delight toward the eye faculty, praising or condemning it. In truth, there is neither good nor bad—all is illusory and empty. Therefore, the eye faculty is ultimately empty; neither past nor future states can be attained. The eye faculty from past lives, the eye faculty from future lives, the present eye faculty compared to the former eye faculty, today’s eye faculty compared to yesterday’s—all are unattainable. Yesterday, relative to today, is the past state; tomorrow, relative to today, is the future state. The present moment as I speak is the immediate state; before speaking is the past state, after speaking is the future state. Linking these past and future states together reveals that they are all unattainable and empty.

The eye faculty of past lives is also unattainable—after all, it cannot be produced or found anywhere. The eye faculty to be formed in the future remains equally unattainable. The present eye faculty cannot be grasped now, and what has not yet manifested is even more illusory. The present eye faculty arises and ceases thought-moment by thought-moment, changing instantaneously—it too is unattainable. The emergence of eye ailments such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, glaucoma, and so forth demonstrates that the eye faculty is mutable and unreliable. It cannot even maintain a single state of health and normalcy—its intrinsic nature is truly unattainable.