Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra), Thirteen

Original text:乃至此界坏时。兴大黑云。三十二重。遍覆三千。大千世界。降霔洪雨。点大如象。昼夜倾注。相续不绝。如是时分。经五十劫。其水积满。上至梵世。大王。此外水界。从何所来。

Explanation: When the trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great world system) is about to be destroyed, thirty-two layers of black clouds descend from the heavens, covering the entire trichiliocosm. Then the raindrops that fall are as large as elephants, pouring down day and night without cease. This continues for a full fifty kalpas, until the water accumulates and fills the desire-realm heavens, rising all the way up to the form-realm heavens. Great King, where does this external water element come from?

The external water element is the water element outside the body, such as the moisture and wetness contained in cosmic space, mountains, rivers, and the great earth. For example, when the trichiliocosm is about to be destroyed and the water calamity appears, great black clouds arise in the sky—thirty-two layers of them, extremely dense and heavy, wrapped together layer upon layer, on the verge of pouring down a great rain. These thirty-two layers of black clouds spread throughout the entire trichiliocosm. The trichiliocosm contains one billion earths and one billion Mount Sumerus; the six heavens of the desire realm and the first dhyāna heaven each number one billion—countless celestial bodies—all covered by the black clouds. Then raindrops as large as elephants come pouring down, pervading the empty space of the entire trichiliocosm, and even the heavens are submerged.

By that time we humans would long since be gone; the earth would already have been destroyed. The fire calamity would have already annihilated humanity and the desire-realm heavens. In the desire realm there would be no humans, no living beings; from the earth up through the six heavens of the desire realm everything would be empty space, and even the empty space would be raining. The rain falls for fifty kalpas—one kalpa counted as a small kalpa is 16.8 million years, so fifty kalpas is 840 million years. The rainwater submerges even the empty space, flooding all the way up to the first dhyāna heaven and the second dhyāna heaven. Such is the destruction of the world. All this water belongs to the external water element. When the water comes, it comes from nowhere; and when the water recedes, where does it recede to? Wherever so much water recedes to becomes a problem—wherever it goes, it submerges that place.

When sentient beings first enter the womb, there is no water in the fertilized egg. But as the tathāgatagarbha gradually enlarges the fertilized egg, water comes to be contained within it. Where does that water come from? When a sentient being dies, the water element in the body is gone—where has the water gone? The water element comes from nowhere and goes nowhere—this is the Hīnayāna teaching. From the Mahāyāna perspective, where does the water element come from? It comes from the tathāgatagarbha. The Mahāyāna teaches that all myriad dharmas come from the tathāgatagarbha, while the Hīnayāna teaches that all dharmas are empty, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. These are the two teachings of the Great and Small Vehicles.

All dharmas are formed out of nothingness, and after destruction there is again nothingness—not even a speck of dust remains, not even the tiniest quark particle. Such is the illusory nature of the world. When something as vast as the world is destroyed, there is nothing to grasp even if one wants to grasp it—how much more easily destroyed is our small body. All dharmas are far too illusory and unreal. Consider the entire process of the formation of our life: from nothingness to a fertilized egg, to our birth, growing from a child into an adult with this shell of over a hundred jin; and when life ends, this hundred-plus jin disperses again—what remains? Nothing at all, only a bit of bone ash. After a long time, even the bone ash is gone. Who could find the bone ash of our previous lives? It cannot be found. Therefore the entire five-aggregate life body, and the entire universe and empty space, are vast and empty, and should not be grasped.