The Black Box World (14)

The four great elements' particles drawn in by the tathāgatagarbha can penetrate all realms. When ordinary sentient beings lack superknowledge, the four great elements' particles can only penetrate glass and transparent objects; a person with superknowledge can see the material sense-objects in the far reaches of the universe's inanimate world through walls and other obstacles, and can see all the objects in the entire inanimate world of the universe, including the hells and the heavenly palaces. One with the divine eye has no obstructions; his tathāgatagarbha can draw in all the external material appearances through objects, because all objects, no matter how vast, are illusory and unreal; with meditative concentration one can be unobstructed by illusory objects. When his tathāgatagarbha draws in the four great elements' particles and they land in the supreme faculty, forming images, the six consciousnesses can then know and discern them—this is called the divine eye. Our external eye organ, the gross physical sense organ of the eye, the vitreous body of the eyeball, can also make contact with the particles of the external mountains and all objects composed of the four great elements; those are the particles drawn in by the tathāgatagarbha and transmitted to the eye organ, and only then can the eye organ make contact—otherwise the eye organ could not make contact. The particles can also be called photons; photons are in motion. Why do they move? Because the tathāgatagarbha outputs the seeds of the four great elements instant after instant, forming particles, or what are called photons. The particles also arise and cease instant by instant—this one arises, that one ceases; this one ceases, that one arises. This phenomenon of photons arising and ceasing one by one forms the process of transmission.

The particles are transmitted in this way. The force of transmission gradually weakens, the transmitted energy diminishes, and finally the transmission stops. The particles formed by the momentaneously arising and ceasing seeds of the four great elements—photons—also arise and cease instant by instant. One photon after another is passed along like a relay baton, through the vitreous body of the eyeball, transmitted to the eye's supreme faculty, forming material appearances. The tathāgatagarbha then gives rise to the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, and we can see the external scenery.

The particles pass through the retina and form images in the supreme faculty at the back of the brain, landing upon the supreme faculty. The supreme faculty is like a plate, and the transmitted photon particles are like beans; the beans land right in the plate, and the two meet—thus the faculty and the sense-object make contact. When the four great elements' particles land in the supreme faculty, they form the image of the inner representation; this image is the visible form. Form and faculty thus make contact. Here there is no question of who actively touches and who does not; this is the principle of contact that is naturally so.

Then, once faculty and sense-object make contact, the eighth consciousness will give rise to the corresponding consciousness to discern the sense-object. If the manas is not interested in the material sense-object that has landed, it will not direct its attention (manaskāra) toward the present material sense-object, nor will it give rise to the volition mental factor (cetanā) wanting to discern it, and the eighth consciousness will not cooperate with the manas to give rise to the eye consciousness and mind consciousness to discern the material sense-object. However, in the first, second, and third instants, the material sense-object will still land in the supreme faculty, and the eye consciousness and mind consciousness can still discern it. When the manas is not interested, the eye consciousness and mind consciousness will try to avoid such material sense-objects and will no longer discriminate them; it is also possible that the two consciousnesses will cease with respect to such material sense-objects and turn toward other material sense-objects.