The Black Box World (34)

It seems that we are in contact with all dharmas, as if we were viewing one scene after another, hearing one sound, then another; as if we smelled one flower fragrance after another, along with the various odors diffused in the air; as if we felt ray after ray of sunlight, and the gentle blowing of one breeze after another. The various sense objects keep changing one after another, but no matter how they change—through a thousand or ten thousand transformations—they are all images inside the black box.

Have the relatively real sense objects existing outside changed? The external sense objects are also changing without cease. One material sense-object after another keeps appearing, one sound after another keeps arising, one odor after another keeps wafting into the nose. It is because the external sense objects keep changing that the internal sense objects transform accordingly, and the six consciousnesses must constantly make contact, discern, and feel. What the six consciousnesses recognize and discern are precisely these secondarily manifested sense objects. Therefore, the inner images inside the black box are derived from the external appearances that seem real; without the outer representation, there would be no inner representation.

The scenes of the outer representation certainly undergo change; it is only a question of whether our body faculty and five faculties can reach them. For example, at a certain place there really is a mountain, an external material sense-object, but our eye faculty can by no means press up against that mountain, cannot actually come into contact with it, and that mountain cannot come into our eye faculty—yet we can nevertheless see that mountain. Speaking of it, this is truly marvelous.

By the same token, a sound arises at some distant place—such as thunder or the calls of birds—and these sounds likewise do not come close to the ear faculty, yet we clearly hear the thunder and the birdsong; this too is quite marvelous. The round sun suspended above the top of the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven is so far away from our body, yet our body faculty can constantly feel the illuminating touch of the sun's radiance—this is truly inconceivable. Distant sandalwood fragrance is so far from our nose faculty, yet our nose consciousness can still smell the scent of the sandalwood—this too is inconceivable. The five faculties do not actually come into contact with the five external sense objects, yet the five consciousnesses can discern the five sense objects. What do these facts show? They show that what our six consciousnesses contact and discern are all the inner five sense objects manifested by the tathāgatagarbha on the basis of the five external sense objects—images of the five external sense objects, shadows inside the black box, not real sense-object appearances, but false appearances secondarily and illusorily produced by the tathāgatagarbha.