Black Box World (34)

We seem to be in contact with all dharmas, as if viewing one landscape after another, hearing one sound, then another; as if smelling one kind of flower fragrance after another, along with the various odors wafting through the air; as if feeling one ray of sunlight after another, and the gentle caress of one breeze after another. The various sense objects keep changing one after another, but in fact, no matter how they change—through myriad transformations—they are all images inside the black box.

Have the relatively real sense objects existing outside changed? The external sense objects are also changing without cease. One material sense-object after another keeps appearing, one sound after another keeps arising, one odor after another keeps wafting into the nose. Because the external sense objects constantly change, the internal sense objects transform accordingly, and the six consciousnesses must continuously make contact, discern, and feel. What the six consciousnesses recognize and discern are precisely these twice-transformed sense objects. Therefore, the internal images in the black box arise based on the external sense objects that seem real; without the external object-aspect (nimitta), there would be no internal object-aspect.

The scenes of the external object-aspect certainly undergo change; it is only a question of whether our body faculty and five faculties can reach them. For example, there is indeed a mountain, an external material sense-object, in a certain place, but our eye faculty cannot actually touch that mountain, cannot make actual contact with it, and that mountain cannot come into our eye faculty—yet we can nevertheless see that mountain. When you think about it, this is truly marvelous.

By the same token, sounds arise in some distant place, such as thunder and birdsong; these sounds do not come close to the ear faculty, yet we clearly hear the thunder and the birdsong—this too is quite marvelous. The round sun hanging above the summit of the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven is so distant from our bodies, yet our body faculty can constantly feel the touch of the sun's radiance—this is truly inconceivable. The distant sandalwood fragrance is so far from our nose faculty, yet our nose consciousness can still smell the scent of sandalwood—this too is inconceivable. The five faculties do not actually make contact with the external five sense objects, yet the five consciousnesses can discern the five sense objects. What do all these things show? They show that what our six consciousnesses contact and discern are all the internal five sense objects manifested by the tathāgatagarbha based on the external five sense objects—images of the external five sense objects, shadows in the black box, not real object-marks of sense objects, but false appearances illusorily produced twice by the tathāgatagarbha.