Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (10)

Original text: 佛说。大王。此外地界。生时本空。灭时亦空。无有男相。也无女相。但唯言说。之所显示。如是地界。与地界性。皆不可得。唯佛正慧。而能了知。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, when this external earth element arises, it is empty by nature; when it ceases, it is also empty. Within this earth element there is no male form and no female form; it is only displayed through the form of language. Such a earth element and the nature of the earth element are both unobtainable; only the great wisdom of the Buddha can fully know this without remainder.

When the external earth element gradually formed, it took twenty small kalpas—336 million years—to be established from empty space where nothing existed, gradually forming the inanimate universe of the three-thousandfold great world system. After the three-thousandfold great world system is destroyed, there is again nothing at all. Whatever is subject to arising and ceasing is empty; not a single dharma remains.

The seeds of the earth element exist within the tathāgatagarbha. Seeds are also formless and without characteristics; they are empty. The external mountains, rivers, and great earth formed from them are also empty in their self-nature, lacking any self-existing essence; they cannot determine their own existence, being created and transformed by the tathāgatagarbha. The hardness of objects is also empty, formless and without characteristics, arising and ceasing along with the objects.

The earth element can form the physical bodies of sentient beings. Among sentient beings in the desire realm, physical bodies are divided into male and female forms, but the earth element itself has neither male nor female form—it has no form at all. After the seeds of the earth element form a physical body, it is then divided into male and female forms. The formless earth element can create objects and living beings that have form.

In our physical bodies, the bones, muscles, skin, hair, and nails all belong to the hardness of earth, called the earth nature. The earth nature itself has no male or female form, but once it forms our physical bodies, it is divided into male and female forms—and male and female forms are in fact all illusory. The earth element originally has no form and no differentiation, yet the forms it manifests happen to have differentiation. Why? Because forms are determined by the karma we create. If we create the karma of a man, the tathāgatagarbha manifests the physical form of a man; if we create the karma of a woman, the karmic seeds are stored in the tathāgatagarbha, and the tathāgatagarbha delivers forth the earth element and creates the physical form of a woman for us.

From the formless to the formed, all forms are illusory. If the karmic seeds are eliminated, the forms are transformed. When we cultivate meditative concentration and attain the dhyānas of the first, second, third, and fourth stages, and at the end of our lives are reborn in the form realm, that physical body is divided neither into male nor female form—at that time there is no male or female form. The fact that male and female forms can be transformed and changed shows that they are unreal, illusory, and false. Whatever can change is false; that which is true never changes.

What is it that never changes? It is the tathāgatagarbha. The three calamities can destroy the great world system, so what is it that cannot be destroyed? It is the tathāgatagarbha. Why can it not be destroyed? Because its nature is empty and its characteristics are also empty; therefore there is nothing in it that can be destroyed. We all have form, and whatever has form can be destroyed; and we all have birth, and therefore death, whereas the tathāgatagarbha neither arises nor ceases.

If a house is empty, and someone comes to steal, rob, or destroy things, he cannot succeed. What is empty has nothing that can be destroyed—who can destroy empty space? The nature of the tathāgatagarbha is empty, and therefore it cannot be destroyed. But all the forms conjured up by the tathāgatagarbha have form, and only things with form can be destroyed. When there is no money in our pocket, who can rob us of money? As long as something exists, it can perish; as long as something is born, it can die. Such is the principle both in the world and beyond the world.

The earth nature is one of the four great element natures of earth, water, fire, and wind. These four great element natures exist within the tathāgatagarbha. It contains the seeds within itself, and when the seeds are delivered forth, they can manifest our physical bodies and manifest mountains, rivers, and the great earth. The four great element seeds can manifest all material form (rūpa).

Both the earth element and the nature of the earth element are unobtainable—illusory and empty. Only the wisdom of the Buddha can fully discern and fully realize this truth of reality. We can only understand it in a similar way, and only partially, even just a small part. Even an equal-enlightenment bodhisattva cannot completely know these principles. Only the wisdom of the Buddha can know these seed-related issues without remainder, fully knowing all the functional seeds within the tathāgatagarbha without the slightest omission; therefore the Buddha possesses the wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā). Bodhisattvas from the first bhūmi onward possess the wisdom of the varieties of paths, knowing a portion of the functional seeds within the tathāgatagarbha. Those who understand none of it are bodhisattvas below the first bhūmi, or ordinary bodhisattvas who have not attained enlightenment. The more one knows, the higher one's wisdom, and the higher the bodhisattva's stage of attainment.