Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (137)

How are illusory dharmas conjured, and in what way are they false?

Cultivation means recognizing and investigating how these illusory appearances arise and how they are false. Does the matter of applying fragrant paste in a dream actually exist? It cannot be denied that such an illusory false appearance exists; the false appearance is utterly unreal. But how does this unreal dharma arise? How is it conjured into being? Only after investigating this can one have great wisdom. After waking from a dream, everything done by the five aggregates is likewise false and illusory, no different from dreaming. So how were the five aggregates and the activities of the five aggregates conjured into being? Only through such continuous contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigation is one actually cultivating. This requires us ourselves to cultivate more meditative concentration (samādhi) and to engage deeply in Chan investigation in order to realize these profound principles.

Apart from the ālayavijñāna, the tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas are conjured forth and are all false. But false dharmas have the functions of false dharmas, and when false dharmas function, that functioning is also false. Our five aggregates themselves are also false, yet the functions of the five-aggregate body are still needed. Beings before the fourth fruit have no ability to eliminate the false appearance of the five aggregates, so they must make these false dharmas and false appearances purer and more at ease, in order to eliminate all suffering feelings. Even when beings attain buddhahood, they do not eliminate the false dharma of the five-aggregate material body; they merely make the five aggregates extremely sublime and extremely pure, without a single trace of defilement or ignorance, adorned with the thirty-two major marks and the eighty minor marks (lakṣaṇa-vyañjana).