What dharmas are the sense faculties, the body, and the material world?

The root body (sense-faculty body) and the material world both refer to the material form (rūpa) that the tathāgatagarbha transforms and creates using the five great seeds, providing sentient beings with what they need for survival. These share common material properties and are constantly arising, ceasing, and changing. Among them, the root body is the sentient being's individual karma, while the material world is the sentient beings' collective karma. The "roots" 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, 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, the various mountains, rivers, lands, trees, treasures, and various living environments, as well as the implements used for survival, and so on. The "realms" are the boundaries of the various vessels and materials: the desire realm has boundaries with the form realm and with the formless realm, and each of the three realms has its own boundaries, possessing distinctions.

Because the root body 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 body and mind of sentient beings is very great. In the universe there exist all kinds of sounds—the so-called music of the spheres—yet sentient beings do not know why. Because various forms of material phenomena exist in the universe, the movement and collision of these phenomena produce energy fluctuations, and thus sounds are formed. 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, fleeing from it as fast as they can.

Why do sounds appear in empty space? This is because the void is not devoid of things; within the void there are various kinds of minute particles in enormous quantities. When 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 among them and can transform into new energy. Precisely because of this, humans are able to convert water power and wind power into electrical energy, generating electricity for lighting and for use in production and daily life.

Form objects and sound objects are a form of energy; smell objects are also a form 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. Taste objects are likewise so, and touch objects even more so; thus all six objects possess energy. Within the universe and the vessel-world exist the various energies of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma.