The Illness in the Black Box

So-called illness is the discordance of the four great elements—the earth, water, fire, and wind elements out of harmony—whereby the bodily structure and organization undergo changes, causing changes in the fundamental particles of the material body, giving rise to pathological changes in the five gross physical sense organs such as the body faculty, possibly including pathological changes in the five supreme faculties, and also possibly including pathological changes in the five faculties of the inner representation within the black box. The pathological changes perceived by sentient beings' six consciousnesses are all pathological changes within the black box, never beyond the black box; therefore they are false illnesses, illusory illnesses, not real illnesses. For example, when you feel eye pain, it is not the eyes on the face—the gross physical sense organ—that hurt, but rather the image of the eyes within the black box that you feel hurting. How could an image feel pain or not feel pain? It is all merely bioelectric signals. Likewise, the feeling of muscle pain or bone pain is not the pain of the body as a gross physical sense organ; it is all the feeling of bioelectric signals within the black box. What is there to hurt about bioelectric signals? What is there to hurt about images? It is nothing but illusion.

Even the feeling of a headache is a false headache within the black box, composed of electrical signals—how could there be any real pain? The head resting on your shoulders does not hurt at all. The feelings of the six consciousnesses are all unreliable, because they are all awareness of illusory and false appearances, all awareness of the electrical signals within the black box; what is being perceived is nothing but unfathomably shifting virtual scenarios. Then what reality is there in the feeling that arises after such awareness? What difference is there between feeling and not feeling? Whatever you do toward these conjured, false appearances, doing and not doing are both empty. Whether aware or unaware, feeling or not feeling—all dharmas are as they inherently are; it merely adds to one's own bondage of birth and death. Apart from this, what else is there?

When one falls ill, the five faculties do not hurt, the six sense objects do not hurt—does the six consciousnesses hurt? What is there for the six consciousnesses to hurt about, since they possess no sense-object nature? Birth and death is the great illness; sentient beings are gravely ill and need treatment. The Four Noble Truths of suffering, its origin, cessation, and the path are the most effective remedy.