Selected Discourses from the Father and Son Collection Sutra: Part 14

Moreover, when this world is about to be destroyed, two suns will appear. After the two suns appear, the small rivers and springs will all dry up. When three suns appear, the four rivers flowing from Lake Anavatapta will also dry up. When four suns appear, the waters of the great oceans will decrease by one yojana (a unit of measurement in ancient India, approximately 40 li). Or by two or three. Gradually decreasing to ten yojanas, or twenty yojanas, they will successively dry up until eighty yojanas. Some water will remain, either as deep as a tala tree, or as deep as a man's chest, or as deep as a cow's hoofprint, until only a little water remains, like the amount covering the surface of a finger. At that time, the waters in the great oceans will all be dried up, completely exhausted without remainder.

Explanation: When the Saha world is about to be destroyed, two suns will appear. In summer, one sun is already unbearable, let alone two suns. When two suns appear, those small rivers and small springs will dry up; when three suns appear, the four great rivers flowing from Lake Anavatapta will also dry up. When four suns appear, the waters of the four great oceans will decrease by one yojana (One yojana is an ancient Indian unit of measurement, representing a yojana, one yojana being forty li.) The great ocean waters refer to the four great oceans beneath our earth, not on our Earth; Lake Anavatapta is also not on Earth, both being immeasurably larger than our Earth.

The seawater on Earth has long since vanished, and the waters of the four great oceans continue to decrease, diminishing by two yojanas, three yojanas. By ten yojanas, twenty yojanas, up to eighty yojanas, only a little water remains, its depth only the height of a tree. Decreasing further, the water depth reaches only a man's chest. Decreasing yet again to water like that in a cow's hoofprint, finally only enough water remains to just cover the surface of a finger. The waters of the four great oceans, immeasurably larger than our Earth, are dried by the sun until only as much as in a cow's hoofprint, and then to water so shallow it barely covers a fingertip, until finally, it is completely dried up, and the great earth becomes parched without a trace of moisture.

When the waters of the four great oceans first formed, where did the water come from? It came from nowhere. Finally, when the four great oceans largely vanish through evaporation, where does the water evaporate to? Does it go into empty space? If empty space contained that much water, it could not hold it; if empty space contained water, it would not be called empty space, it would be called an ocean. Therefore, when the ocean water disappears, it has nowhere to go. The element of water is so illusory; it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, from emptiness to emptiness. The entire trichiliocosm is illusory like this; the buddha-lands of the ten directions are also illusory like this, arising and ceasing, ceasing and arising, all are not to be clung to. The nature of the water element, when born, is fundamentally empty; when extinguished, it is also empty—from emptiness to emptiness, utterly devoid of anything.