The Malady Within the Black Box

The so-called illness refers to the disharmony of the Four Great Elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—which causes changes in the organizational structure, leading to alterations in the fundamental particles of the physical body. This results in pathological changes in the five coarse material sense faculties (such as the body faculty) and may also include pathological changes in the five subtle sense faculties within the black box, as well as pathological changes in the inner manifestations of the five sense faculties within the black box. All illnesses perceived by the six consciousnesses of sentient beings are illnesses within the black box, existing nowhere beyond it. Therefore, they are illusory and false illnesses, not real ones. For instance, when one feels pain in the eye, it is not the eye of the coarse material face that hurts, but rather the image of the eye within the black box that feels painful. How can an image feel pain? It is merely an electrical signal. Similarly, the sensation of muscle pain or bone pain is not the pain of the coarse material body; it is the sensation of electrical signals within the black box that feels painful. What pain can there be in an electrical signal? What pain can there be in an image? It is merely an illusion.

Even the sensation of a headache is a false headache composed of electrical signals within the black box—where is the real pain? The head on the shoulders does not hurt. The perceptions of the six consciousnesses are all unreliable because they are perceptions of illusory and false phenomena, perceptions of the electrical signals within the black box. What is perceived are ever-changing virtual scenarios, so how can the feeling (vedanā) that arises after perception have any reality? What difference is there between feeling and not feeling? Whatever one does toward these illusory, false phenomena—whether acting or not acting—is empty. Perception or non-perception, feeling or non-feeling—all dharmas are inherently thus. They merely increase the bonds of birth and death for the individual; what else is there beyond this?

When ill, the five sense faculties do not feel pain; the six sense objects do not feel pain. Do the six consciousnesses feel pain? What pain can the six consciousnesses feel? They possess no material nature. Birth and death themselves are the great illness. Sentient beings are gravely ill and must be treated. The most effective cure is the Four Noble Truths: suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.