Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra), Part Nine

Original text:大王。又此地界。欲坏灭时。或为火焚。或为水漂。或为风吹。譬然酥油。其焰炽盛。乃至灰烬。不复可见。若为水漂。犹如以盐。投于水中。须臾消散。若为毗岚。猛风所吹。彼时三千大千世界。悉皆散坏。净尽无余。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, when the earth element is about to perish, it may be burned by great fire, submerged by great water, or scattered by great wind. When the earth element is burned by great fire, it is like the lighting of a ghee lamp: the flame blazes fiercely until the ghee is completely burned up, leaving not even ashes to be seen. When the earth element is carried away by great water, it is like salt thrown into water—in a moment it dissolves and disappears. When the earth element is destroyed by the fierce vairambhaka wind, the entire trichiliocosm at that very moment scatters and breaks apart, utterly destroyed without remainder.

When the earth element is about to perish, how does it perish? The first way is destruction by great fire. When the fire calamity arrives, it burns all the way up to the First Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm; below the First Dhyāna Heaven, nothing remains. The six heavens of the desire realm and their celestial palaces are all gone, Mount Sumeru is gone, the four great continents are gone, and the earth is gone. When the world is about to end, once the great fire ignites, the earth is burned out of existence. How does the earth disappear? First two suns appear, then three, four, five, and six suns, and finally seven suns come out, and everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven is burned to destruction. When two suns appear, all life on earth vanishes without a trace—let alone seven suns. With just one sun, we can hardly bear it when summer arrives; if two suns came out, could life still exist? When seven suns appear, the waters of the four great oceans all dry up, and the earth catches fire directly and is burned out of existence. The fire rises up to the heavens: Mount Sumeru is burned away, all six heavens of the desire realm are burned away, and the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone too. Gold, silver, and jewels are burned away long before; the seven treasures, which are even harder than gold and silver, are likewise burned to nothing.

The second is the water calamity. After everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven has been burned away, torrential rain falls from the sky—each raindrop as large as an elephant—falling for seven days and seven nights without cease. The water rises all the way to the second heaven of the form realm: the six heavens of the desire realm are gone, the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone, and the water rises further to the Second Dhyāna Heaven, submerging it entirely. Such is the power of the water calamity—no deva from the Second Dhyāna Heaven on down can escape it.

The third calamity is the wind calamity. When the great wind blows, it blows all the way up to the Third Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm, sweeping the Third Dhyāna Heaven out of existence. If the earth has not already been burned away by great fire, it can be scattered by the great wind in an instant. All six heavens of the desire realm are blown apart, leaving not even a trace to be found. Whether things are made of the seven treasures or a hundred treasures, all can be blown apart; no matter how hard a thing is, it cannot exist, cannot endure—such is the magnitude of this wind's power. There is only one thing that fire cannot burn, water cannot submerge, and wind cannot blow away: the tathāgatagarbha.

After the three calamities pass, only the heavens of the Fourth Dhyāna and above remain. The Fourth Dhyāna Heaven has four levels; adding the four formless heavens, the heavens of the formless realm—none of these celestial realms can be reached by any calamity. Because from the Fourth Dhyāna upward there is purity of equanimity and mindfulness, without thought, the mind abides in a state of tranquility, and thus no disasters can reach it. Within the meditative state of the Third Dhyāna there is still breathing, and breathing is wind, so it can attract the wind calamity; the wind calamity can rise to the Third Dhyāna Heaven and destroy even that heaven. After the entire trichiliocosm has completely scattered and broken apart, there is silence without remainder—destroyed so thoroughly that not even a speck of dust can be found, nothing at all remains. Therefore it is said that the world is indeed illusory.