Does Matter Really Have Weight?

When facing an object many times heavier than one's own body weight, if in an extremely, extremely urgent situation one forgets the object's weight, or has no time to consider the object's weight, and only focuses on rescuing the person beneath the object, that person can instantly push the object away. After the person is rescued, upon seeing that what one pushed was such a heavy thing, the mind is startled, and at that point, no matter how one tries, one can no longer push that thing even the slightest bit. Why is it so?

In the urgency of the moment, the mind consciousness loses its power of deliberation and will not tell the manas that the object is extremely heavy. The manas does not consider the question of the object's weight; it only makes the mental attention and determination to push the object away to save the person, and as a result, the manas achieves its goal. Afterwards, when the mind consciousness looks at that object, it is astonished, learns of the object's weight, and tells the manas. Once the manas knows, it realizes that by its own strength it could never push away such a heavy object, and so the tathāgatagarbha will no longer help the manas.

All dharmas are created by the mind—created by the tathāgatagarbha, created by the manas, and also created by the mind consciousness. As long as the mind consciousness and the manas want to create some dharma, the tathāgatagarbha will provide the raw materials and produce the product. The prerequisite is that it accords with karmic power. Without meditative concentration (samādhi), the mind consciousness scatters its flowers wildly and gives blind commands, and the manas, upon hearing them, is obstructed. In meditative concentration, the mind consciousness's power is weak, and whatever the manas wants to do, it can do, and it will succeed. How foolish are those who only know how to grasp at the mind consciousness! Those who circle around and around the mind consciousness, not knowing to grasp the master, the trunk, the key point, the root—how shallow their wisdom must be. During hypnosis, when the mind consciousness is controlled and not allowed to give blind commands, one can use the manas to dig out many secrets. Changing the manas is very easy—returning to the past, going to the future, all are no problem.

No matter how heavy a material substance is, even as large as Mount Sumeru, as heavy as Mount Sumeru, it is still a material form composed of the seeds of the four great elements. The seeds of the four great elements have no weight, so the material form composed of them should also have no weight. Sentient beings are obscured by ignorance and do not know this principle; due to karmic power, they feel the weight of material form. A person with profound meditative concentration, having subdued ignorance and opened the power of the mind, will not be constrained by material things and their weight, and can handle material things at will—such as lifting, shattering, combining, passing through, and so on—and can also manifest material things at will, able to play with the four great elements and play with material form.