The Human Body Is a Program Designed by Tathāgatagarbha

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

Look at this neural system: it is nothing but a bundle of positive and negative electrical wires, a pile of tangled ropes. It pulls along the aggregate of volitional 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 will be at ease, free, liberated, without affliction or distress.

All of this—just use it and be done; there is no need to cling to it. This includes the entire physical body and the functions of the six consciousnesses: all of them operate on fixed programs, designed and arranged by the tathāgatagarbha for the manas to use. If someone slaps you in the face or throws a punch at you, just let it go—don't take it to heart; they cannot hit you. If someone makes unreasonable trouble for you, let it go as well—they cannot violate you or harm you. Let the world do whatever it likes; whether things are good or bad makes no difference—none of it is real, so why take it seriously? You hold grudges against me, I hold grudges against him; you hate me, I despise him—afflictions utterly without reason or meaning. From the struggles among microorganisms to wars between nations and world wars, the fighting is endless—it is simply without reason, and no one can defeat anyone anyway. What arises ceases, what ceases arises; there is no birth and no death. When millions die in the 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 lost his composure in anguish, yet the Buddha remained as calm as still water as always, without anger or hatred. Why could the Buddha see through it all so thoroughly? Because there are no real persons and no real events in anything—all is illusory and empty. That is why the Buddha was liberated, while Ānanda, not being liberated, suffered immensely.