How Sentient Beings Age in the Black Box

The black box matures gradually as the physical body matures. As the external five sense faculties (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body) grow and mature with age, they subsequently age, stiffen, and degenerate. Similarly, the five superior sense faculties within the black box gradually age and degenerate over time. While the four great elements (earth, water, fire, and wind) continuously renew themselves, the functional capacity of the five superior sense faculties evolves from initial delicacy and weakness to strength, and then to stiffness and degeneration. The conductive nerves of the five sense faculties gradually become less sensitive; the transmitted particles of the four great elements progressively diminish and become distorted. Consequently, the six consciousnesses (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental) discern the internal six objects of sense (forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects, and mental objects) more slowly, with increasingly blurred and unclear perception, resulting in dull reactions.

The condition of one's own body faculty, as discerned by the six consciousnesses, is not the actual state of the original physical body. Rather, it is an image formed by the original physical body within the black box of the superior sense faculties. It is a composite of various particles such as electrons, atoms, neutrons, etc., an illusory false body, not the original, true, solid entity. Therefore, it is completely unnecessary to cling to the physical body; these are merely combinations of bioelectrical signals, with no actual body or the five coarse material sense faculties. If there were a real physical body, there should not be various supernatural powers such as passing through mountains or entering water, and so forth.