The Profound Meaning of the Diamond Sutra in Consciousness-only (141)

Original text:须菩提。若善男子。善女人。以三千大千世界碎为微尘。于意云何。是微尘众宁为多不。甚多。世尊。何以故。若是微尘众实有者。佛即不说是微尘众。

Explanation: The World-Honored One said to Subhūti: If good men and good women were to smash this trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great world) into fine dust particles, what do you think? Would the number of these dust particles be many? Subhūti replied: Very many, World-Honored One. Why are the dust particles very many? Because if these dust particles truly existed, if they were real and substantially existent, the Buddha would not call them dust particles.

How large is a trichiliocosm? Counting it up, it seems to include a billion or ten billion earths, a billion or ten billion Mount Sumerus, a billion or ten billion Trāyastriṃśa heavens, a billion or ten billion desire-realm heavens, a billion or ten billion first-dhyāna heavens, a billion or ten billion four great oceans, a billion or ten billion seven rings of golden mountains — all of them numbering in the billions or tens of billions, extremely vast. A trichiliocosm is boundlessly vast, immeasurably vast. If it were smashed into fine dust, how many dust particles would there be? It would simply be beyond calculation, because the trichiliocosm itself is already enormous; when such an enormous physical entity is broken into fragments, with empty space added in between, the resulting dust particles would occupy an area and volume even greater than that of the trichiliocosm itself. Therefore, once the trichiliocosm is smashed into fine dust, there is no need to count the number of those dust particles — they simply cannot be counted.

The Buddha said: A good man or good woman smashes a trichiliocosm into fine dust — what is your opinion? Would the number of these dust particles be many? Subhūti said: It is simply too many to count; there would be no need to count, for no matter how one counts, one could never finish. Even if the body of a single person were smashed into fine dust, the number of these dust particles could not be counted; if the body of a small animal were smashed into fine dust, the number of dust particles likewise could not be counted. What is called "fine dust" is the dispersal of an object, dividing it into the finest of the fine, so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, until it finally becomes a particle of the smallest unit — this is what is called fine dust. At that point it is still a tiny particle composed of the four great elements, an extremely minute, extremely minute particle, almost approaching emptiness and nothingness, yet it is still material form. These tiny particles are also produced by the tathāgatagarbha, formed from the four great-element seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind — extremely minute, extremely minute, almost nonexistent, yet still existing, still dust-matter composed of the four great elements.

With such a vast number of dust particles, is it not too many? Subhūti said: Too many. Why so many? Why is it called "many"? The Buddha said: If these dust particles were substantially existent, the Buddha would not call them a multitude of dust particles. Because Subhūti had heard the World-Honored One expound this Diamond Sutra, he had already understood the true meaning of the Dharma the World-Honored One was teaching, and so he said: If this multitude of dust particles were truly substantially existent, if they were unborn and unceasing, genuinely existing dust particles, then the Buddha would not call them a multitude of dust particles ("multitude" represents many, meaning an extremely great quantity).