What dharmas are the faculties, body, and the vessel-world?

The root-body (sense faculties and body) and the vessel-world (material environment) both refer to the material form (rūpa) that the tathāgatagarbha transforms and creates through the five great seed elements, providing sentient beings with the material necessities for survival. They share common material properties and are constantly arising, ceasing, and changing. Among them, the root-body is the individual karma of sentient beings, while the vessel-world is the collective karma of sentient beings. 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, encompassing the five faculties. The "vessel" is the universe, the vessel-world — the worlds of the three realms of desire, form, and formlessness — 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 root-body and the vessel-world are material form, the five great seed elements 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 heavens" — yet sentient beings do not know why. Because all kinds of material forms exist in the universe, the movement and collision of these forms produce energy fluctuations, and thus sounds are formed. The void in the universe is extremely vast, boundless and limitless; sounds drift through space without obstruction, appearing especially spacious, 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 empty space is not devoid of things; within empty space there are all kinds of minute particles in enormous numbers. As these particles move and collide with one another, sounds arise from this. These particles are composed of the five great seed elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space; the vibration of each great element can release energy, and in combination they can generate even more energy; energy is also transformed between them, and can become new forms of 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 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. The same is true of taste objects, and even more so of touch objects; thus all six objects (ṣaḍ-viṣaya) possess energy. The vessel-world of the universe contains all kinds of energies: form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas.