Coarse Five Sense Objects and Subtle Dharma Objects

If there were no coarse five sense-objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, there would be no subtle mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya) produced from these five sense-objects. The subtle mental sense-objects produced from the coarse five sense-objects are called form included in the dharma base (dharmāyatana), which also belongs to material form, but is subtler than the coarse five sense-objects. The coarse five sense-objects are formed from actual particles of the four great elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, but the form included in the dharma base manifested from the coarse five sense-objects is extremely subtle. This degree of subtlety can be illustrated by an analogy: our physical body is formed from the coarse four great elements, whereas the physical bodies of the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava), ghosts and spirits, and devas are formed from the subtle four great elements. There is a great difference between a physical body formed from the subtle four great elements and one formed from the coarse four great elements: the coarse physical body feels coarse, heavy, and weighty, unable to float or fly, without supernatural powers, without the supernormal power of travel; whereas the subtle physical body is just the opposite. This is equivalent to the difference between visible form and the form among the five sense-objects (form included in the dharma base).

For example, a mirror—no matter what objects appear before it, it can manifest them all one by one. A mirror cannot be used as an analogy for the supreme faculty (indriya), but it can be used as an analogy for the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha is like a mirror: when all the five sense-objects arrive, He can "reflect" them all. For instance, the form-object before one's eyes, whether near or far, sounds from all directions, the surrounding smell-objects, whether coarse or fine, fragrant or foul, near or far—the tathāgatagarbha simultaneously holds them all and can "reflect" them all. The five sense-objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, as well as countless varieties of the five sense-objects—if they confront us, the tathāgatagarbha can simultaneously receive them all, reflect them all, and simultaneously form images of them all. This is the function of the tathāgatagarbha.