The Human Body Is a Program Designed by the Tathāgatagarbha

Observe the anatomical chart of the human body, and you will know that bodily movements are muscular movements—mechanized; there is no real "I" doing the moving. The human body is merely a tool of the manas, high-precision, mechanized, and fully automatic—not real; it is arranged by the tathāgatagarbha. What exactly is this thing that can be disassembled and reassembled like this? Is it you? Can you take it as "I"? Is it worth paying such a great price to cling to it? You only get to use it for a few decades, that's all; if it doesn't work, just swap it for a better one.

Look at this neuronal system: it is nothing but a bundle of positive and negative electric wires, a pile of tangled ropes. It pulls along the aggregate of formations and the aggregate of consciousness, and produces the aggregate of perception and the aggregate of feeling. See through it—there is actually nothing there. Cast off these burdens, and you are at ease, free, liberated, without affliction or distress.

All of this is just for using; there is no need to cling to it—including the entire physical body, including the functions of the six consciousnesses. All of it follows fixed programs, designed and arranged by the tathāgatagarbha for the manas to use. If someone slaps you or punches you, just let it go—don't take it to heart; they cannot hit you. If someone makes unreasonable trouble for you, just let it go too; they cannot violate you or harm you. Let the world do whatever it likes—good or bad, it doesn't matter. Nothing is real, so why take it seriously? You bear a grudge against me, I bear a grudge against him; you hate me, I despise him—affliction without reason, without meaning. From the struggles among microorganisms to wars between nations, to world wars, the fighting is utterly senseless, and no one can defeat anyone. What is born ceases; what ceases is born; there is no birth and no death. When millions die in this world, it is merely a huge pile of tangled ropes disappearing.

Several hundred of Śākyamuni Buddha's relatives were killed by King Virūḍhaka, and Ānanda was distraught with grief, yet the Buddha's mind remained as calm as still water, as always—neither vexed nor resentful. Why could the Buddha take it all so lightly? Because in all things there is no real person and no real event—they are illusory and empty. That is why the Buddha was liberated, while Ānanda, not liberated, was plunged into intense anguish.