The Black Box World (Thirty)

Why the Six Sense Objects That Can Be Known Are All Images Inside the Black Box Some people, upon encountering the issue of the inner representation, cannot believe that everything they contact and discern—all dharmas—are shadows of the inner representation inside the black box. They believe that everything they see is so real and reliable that it cannot possibly be a shadow. This is because the shadow is extremely similar to the outer representation, almost identical, so each person feels that their walking, sitting, lying down, eating, drinking, and bodily functions are all so real and actual. They feel that when they see forms and hear sounds, what they see is the scenery outside, what they hear is the sounds outside, what they feel is the sunshine outside, and they cannot understand how all this could be shadows, how it could be false.

When reading the Diamond Sutra, where the Buddha says that all marks are false and illusory, everyone can believe and accept it, and can even recite it fluently from memory. But if we analyze it concretely and say that these six sense objects are all shadows, all inside the black box, and therefore all false, then people cannot understand and accept it. If the explanation is too concrete, and one must face the actual problem, it becomes very difficult. When reciting the Buddha's words, one need not understand and contemplate them concretely, need not truly face these problems, and since it is the Buddha's words, people will recite them parrot-fashion—when in fact they do not understand their meaning.

Because for beginningless kalpas we have been accustomed to clinging to marks, accustomed to being inverted; it has long become a habit, and such views are hard to correct in a short time, hard to turn right side up again. It requires slowly changing one's cognition and slowly returning to correct views. Now let us take concrete examples again for contemplation and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), using the concrete to contemplate that all the six sense object realms we contact are shadows inside the black box.

For example, there is this question. Someone asks: "From place A to place B, along the way, everything I experienced—what I saw, heard, felt, and knew—was clearly so real. Places A and B were also so real. Whether riding in a car, on a plane, or walking, everything was so real. How could it all be shadows inside the black box?"

Let us first speak of walking. When walking, all the realm-marks contacted by the six consciousnesses are the six sense object realms inside the black box. First, because we walk on two legs, the physical body keeps moving, so all the realms contacted by the six consciousnesses are constantly changing. During the process of walking, the scenery of the outer representation keeps changing, and this change includes all changes in the six sense objects: changes in the scenery of the form object, changes in the sounds of the sound object, changes in the odors of the scent object, changes in the sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy flavors of the taste object, as well as changes in the cold, heat, touch, and pain of the touch object, and also the changes of various thoughts and mental notions in the mind.

The various sceneries we experience are constantly changing, but our eye consciousness cannot contact the real external scenery at all. Even so, we do see various constantly changing sceneries, and so we take them to be the external scenery that is constantly changing. In fact, the external scenery is indeed constantly changing, because the physical body is constantly moving and the places contacted are constantly changing, so the scenery keeps changing; consequently, the inner scenery that depends on the external scenery—that is, the shadow—must also constantly change.

But why can the body walk from place A to place B? Why can the places contacted constantly change? Why must the scenery constantly change? Here we touch upon the secret of the operation of the tathāgatagarbha, and so please forgive me for not disclosing it. Because the scenery of the outer material sense-object keeps changing, the tathāgatagarbha, through the eye faculty, takes in the subtle particles of the various form objects and transmits them into the black box, where it manifests the images of the inner representation. Thus, the images change moment by moment, yet what our eye consciousness sees is a gradual transformation, not very fast.