Is Spiritual Cultivation to Empty the Realm or to Empty the Self?

What does the objective realm encompass? The objective realm is dust (visaya), which comprises all dharmas of form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and mental objects that stand in opposition to my conscious mind. This includes all dharmas of human affairs and physical phenomena, including the five aggregates of self and others. Contact between the sense faculties and their objects gives rise to consciousness. Where there is consciousness, there is discrimination, and thus thoughts arise. So, in spiritual practice, is it the objective realm that is to be emptied, or is it the self? It is the self that must first be emptied; when the self is emptied, the objective realm is thereby emptied. It is not that the objective realm is emptied first, and then I become empty.

If the objective realm does not exist, then I do not exist; if the objective realm exists, then I exist. What kind of practice is this? If this were considered practice, then non-Buddhist practitioners who attain the four dhyanas and eight samadhis and empty the appearances of the objective realm, yet retain the self—have they severed the view of self? Who is emptier than those non-Buddhists? Those who cultivate the objective realm are originally those who follow the objective realm’s lead; those who follow the objective realm are ordinary beings. If the self is emptied, is there still dust? The dust thereby becomes empty along with it. If you are not empty, all objective realms arise; if your mind is empty, all objective realms dissolve into nothingness.