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

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 material body is, after all, bound to fester and disintegrate, and in the end it is abandoned in the wilderness and in the graveyard, where the four great elements scatter and vanish without a trace. Where does the hardness within the material body come from? It has no place of origin and no place of destination; it does not come from the four directions, the four intermediate directions, up, or down of the material body, nor does it depart to the four directions, the four intermediate directions, up, or down. Such is the earth element within this material body: it has no place of origin and no place of destination. (This is the Small Vehicle teaching; 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 material body, and that in the end the seeds of the four great elements within the material body return to the Ālayavijñāna tathāgatagarbha.)

Where does the earth property within this kalala (fertilized embryo) come from? It comes from nowhere, and after it ceases there is no place it returns to. When the material body dies and the earth property ceases, 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 exists from the kalala stage onward, then becomes the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, sinews, and bones on the material body; after death, the earth property disperses, the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, sinews, and bones are all destroyed, and the hardness has nowhere to go, nor does it go into empty space—when it came, it had no place of origin; it simply came like that.

But in reality it is all transmitted from the tathāgatagarbha; the Buddha had not yet spoken of this point. This is how the inner earth element comes about: because of the union of man and woman, the manas enters the womb into the fertilized egg, and upon the formation of the kalala the earth element arises. Since the earth element is thus subject to arising and ceasing, illusory and unreal, we should not cling to the earth element, nor take the hair, teeth, skin, flesh, muscles, sinews, bones, and the material body as the self, as real and imperishable.