What Dharmas Are the Sense-Faculty Body and Container World?

The sense faculties (indriya) and the material world (bhājana-loka) both refer to the material form (rūpa) that the tathāgatagarbha transforms and creates through the five great seeds, providing sentient beings with the material necessities for survival. They share common material properties and are constantly arising, ceasing, and changing. Among them, the sense faculties belong to the individual karma of sentient beings, while the material world belongs to the shared karma of sentient beings. The faculties include the eye faculty, ear faculty, nose faculty, tongue faculty, and body faculty. The body is the entire body, the totality of the body, including the five faculties. The "vessel" is the universe of the vessel-world, the worlds of the three realms—the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm—including the palaces of the various heavenly realms, all kinds of mountains, rivers, lands, trees, precious substances, various living environments, the implements used for survival, and so on. The "realms" are the boundaries of the various implements and materials: the desire realm has boundaries with the form realm, and boundaries with the formless realm; each of the three realms has its own boundaries and distinctions.

Because the sense faculties and the material world are material form, the five great seeds all operate within them; therefore, they all possess energy and are all energy fields. Form, sound, smell, taste, and touch all have energy, and their influence on the bodies and minds of sentient beings is very great. The universe contains all kinds of sounds—the so-called "music of the heavens"—and sentient beings do not know their cause. Because the universe contains various kinds of material form, the movement and collision of material forms produce energy fluctuations, which form sounds. The void in the universe is immense, boundless and limitless; sounds drift through space without obstruction, appearing especially vast, distant, deep, and soul-stirring. When sentient beings hear them, some feel tranquility and yearn for it in their hearts, while others feel terror and dread and flee from it.

Why do sounds appear in empty space? This is because empty space is not devoid of things; within empty space there are various kinds of minute particles in enormous quantities. As these particles move and collide with one another, sounds arise from this. These particles are composed of the five great seeds of earth, water, fire, wind, and space. The vibration of each great seed can release energy, and in combination they can generate even more energy; energy is also converted between them and can transform into new energy. It is precisely because of this that humans are able to convert water energy and wind energy into electrical energy, generating electricity for lighting and for the needs of production and daily life.

Form objects (rūpa-viṣaya) and sound objects are a kind of energy; smell objects are also a kind of energy. Some fragrances have the effect of refreshing and stimulating the mind, while some fragrances have the effect of suppressing the brain's nerve cells, thereby causing people to fall unconscious and be poisoned. The same is true of taste objects, and even more so of touch objects; therefore, all six sense objects have energy. The vessel-world of the universe belongs to form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas, all of which have energy.