Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (Six)

Original text: 若各各有。则汝阿难。应有二身。若头与手一触所生。则手与头。当为一体。若一体者。触则无成。若二体者。触谁为在。在能非所。在所非能。不应虚空。与汝成触。是故当知。觉触与身。俱无处所。即身与触。二俱虚妄。本非因缘。非自然性。

Explanation: Why does the earth element possess the property of hardness? Great King, this hardness is also a similar provisional designation in name; it is not truly hard and imperishable forever. Because this physical body is, after all, bound to fester and disperse, and in the end it is cast away into the wilderness and the charnel ground, where the four great elements scatter and vanish without a trace. Where does the hardness within this physical body come from? It has no place of coming and no place of going; it does not come from the four directions, the four intermediate directions, above, or below of the physical body, nor does it depart to the four intermediate directions, above, or below. Such is the earth element within this physical body: it has no place of coming and no place of going. (This is the Small Vehicle's way of teaching the Dharma; the World-Honored One did not explicitly state that the ālayavijñāna and the tathāgatagarbha output the seeds of the four great elements to form the physical body, and that in the end the seeds of the four great elements within the body return to the ālayavijñāna tathāgatagarbha.)

Where does the earth property within this kalala (fertilized egg) come from? It comes from nowhere, and after it perishes there is no place it returns to. When the physical body dies and the earth property perishes, where does the earth property go? It has no place to go. Thus the earth property is empty, illusory, and unreal; therefore the hardness of the body is not real. The hardness has existed from the kalala stage onward, and then becomes the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, and bones on the physical body; after death, the earth property disperses, the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, and bones are all destroyed, and the hardness has no place to go, nor does it go into empty space—when it came, there was no place it came from; it simply came thus.

But in reality it is all transmitted from the tathāgatagarbha; the Buddha had not yet spoken of this point. This is how the internal earth element comes about: because of the union of man and woman, the manas enters the womb into the fertilized egg, and when the kalala is produced, the earth element arises. Since the earth element is thus subject to arising and ceasing, illusory and false, we should not cling to the earth element, and should not take the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, bones, and the physical body as the self, as real and imperishable.