Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son, Lecture Notes (18)

The Situation When the Three Calamities Arrive

When the earth element is about to be destroyed, how is it destroyed? The first is destruction by the great fire. When the fire calamity arrives, it burns all the way up to the First Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm, and everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone. The six heavens of the desire realm and the heavenly palaces are all gone, Mount Sumeru is gone, the four great continents are gone, and the earth is gone. When the world is about to perish, once the great fire ignites, the earth is burned out of existence. How does the earth disappear? First two suns appear, then three, four, five, six suns, and finally seven suns come out, and everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven is burned to destruction. When two suns appear, all life on earth vanishes without a trace—let alone seven suns. With just one sun, we cannot bear it when summer arrives; if two suns come out, can life still exist? When seven suns appear, the waters of the four great oceans all dry up, the earth catches fire directly, and is burned out of existence. The fire rises up to the heavens, Mount Sumeru is burned away, all six heavens of the desire realm are burned away, and the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone too. All gold, silver, and jewels have long since been burned away; the seven treasures, which are even harder than gold and silver, are likewise burned to nothing.

The second is the water calamity. After everything below the First Dhyāna Heaven has been burned away, torrential rain pours down from the heavens, each raindrop as large as an elephant, falling for seven days and seven nights. The water keeps rising up to the Second Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm. The six heavens of the desire realm are gone, the First Dhyāna Heaven is gone, and the water rises further to the Second Dhyāna Heaven, submerging the entire Second Dhyāna Heaven. That is how devastating the water calamity is—the devas of the Second Dhyāna Heaven and below cannot escape it.

The third calamity is the wind calamity. When the great wind blows, it blows all the way up to the Third Dhyāna Heaven of the form realm, blowing the Third Dhyāna Heaven out of existence. If the earth has not been burned away by the great fire, it can be instantly scattered by the great wind. All six heavens of the desire realm are blown apart, leaving not even a trace. Whatever is composed of the seven treasures or a hundred treasures can all be blown apart; even the hardest things cannot exist, cannot endure—how immense must that wind power be. There is only one thing that fire cannot burn, water cannot submerge, and wind cannot blow away: the tathāgatagarbha.

After the three calamities pass, only the Fourth Dhyāna Heaven and above remain. The Fourth Dhyāna Heaven has four levels, and together with the four formless heavens—the heavens of the formless realm—none of these heavenly realms can be reached by the calamities. Because from the Fourth Dhyāna upward there is purity of equanimity and mindfulness, without any thoughts; the mind abides in a state of tranquility, and thus there are no calamities. Within the meditative concentration of the Third Dhyāna there is still breathing, and breathing is wind, so it can attract the wind calamity; the wind calamity can rise to the Third Dhyāna Heaven and destroy even that heaven. After the three-thousandfold great thousand-worlds have all disintegrated, there is silence without remainder, destroyed so completely that not even a speck of dust can be found—nothing at all remains. Therefore it is said that the world is indeed illusory.