The Black Box World (28)

The manas and the tathāgatagarbha can encompass all dharmas. Whatever dharma the tathāgatagarbha manifests, the manas can take as an object, can receive it, and can discern it. All the six sense-objects of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma, the realm of the body faculty, and the eleven kinds of form—the five faculties, the five sense-objects, and form subsumed under the Dharmāyatana—all have a knowing that comes to discern them. What is this knowing? In the end, you will realize it. When you cultivate to a certain degree, you will realize that all dharmas are entirely the functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha—the tathāgatagarbha is truly the self! At the time of buddhahood, the tathāgatagarbha is the genuine self of permanence, bliss, self, and purity! These deluded functions and operations are not the functions and operations of the self of the five aggregates; they are all manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, all functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha.

Take another example: a blind person. When a blind person walks, he cannot see the road, so he leans on a cane. When the cane probes forward and strikes a stone, the mind consciousness feels that it is hard, even though he may not know it is a stone. When he touches a stone with his cane, he has not seen the stone, and his body has not come into contact with the stone, yet he knows that the thing ahead has an obstructing effect, and he will try his best to walk around it. He has no eyes, yet he can know it is a stone, or know it is something hard that can trip him up.

Therefore, knowing hardness, or knowing it is a stone, knowing form objects and tactile objects, does not necessarily rely on the eyes to see, nor necessarily on the body to touch; there are other methods of discernment, and of course hidden within all of these is a great secret. For example, take a guide dog. When a blind person uses a guide dog, as soon as the dog sees an obstruction ahead, it turns direction, and the blind person is led to turn as well. Thus, without his eyes looking at the road, the blind person can know to walk forward, backward, left, or right. This knowing is very strange—this knowing can know without the eyes, can know without the five consciousnesses. If we develop all these functions, the six faculties will come to interfunction and be mutually employed.

Take another example: when we close our eyes, although we do not see external forms, we can still see darkness, and darkness is also a kind of form. After the eyes have been closed for a long time, it no longer feels too dark, and some lights and colors will appear before the eyes. A person without meditative concentration (samādhi) will see all sorts of colors; a person with meditative concentration will at first see red, then golden red, and finally pale yellow. In the end, the light and color seen become even fainter and brighter. Although our eye consciousness is not manifest, with eyes closed we can still see forms before us. As for the seeing-nature here, whose seeing-nature does it belong to?

What do these functions and operations demonstrate? They demonstrate that behind our surface deluded functions there is a true, never-perishing virtue and capacity of nature and function, which can encompass all dharmas. We can, without using the five faculties, possess the nature of seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing—in the end, whose operations are the operations of the six faculties? They are all functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha. When we no longer take the functions and operations of the six faculties as the self or as real, and become less and less attached to the functions and operations of the six faculties, our innately possessed wisdom and virtuous capacity will manifest, radiating great light. All these functions and operations will be fully developed and revealed, and no dharma will ever again be an obstruction, and nothing will ever again be a secret.