Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (14)

Original text:又此世。界将欲坏时。有二日出。二日出已。小河泉流。悉皆枯涸。三日出时。无热恼池。所出四河。亦皆干竭。四日出时。大海水减。一踰缮那。或二或三。渐次减至。十踰缮那。或二十踰缮那。次第枯竭。至八十踰缮那。有余水在。或深至一多罗树。或深至胸臆。或深至牛迹。乃至少水。如指面量。当尔之时。大海水中悉皆干燥。净尽无余。

Explanation: When the Saha world is about to be destroyed, two suns appear. In summer, even one sun is already unbearable, let alone two. When two suns appear, those small rivers, springs, and ponds are all dried up by the heat; when three suns appear, the four great rivers flowing out of Lake Anavatapta also dry up. When four suns appear, the water of the four great oceans decreases by one yojana (one yojana is an Indian unit of measurement, representing a yojana; one yojana is forty li). The four great oceans refer to the four great oceans beneath our Earth, not on our Earth; Lake Anavatapta is also not on the Earth; both are immeasurably many times larger than our Earth.

The seawater on Earth has long since disappeared, and the water of the four great oceans keeps decreasing—by two yojanas, three yojanas, ten yojanas, twenty yojanas, eighty yojanas—until in the end only a little water remains, with a depth of only the height of one tree. It decreases further, until the water is only as deep as a human chest; it decreases further, until the water is only as much as the imprint of a cow's hoof; and finally only a little water remains, just enough to cover the surface of the fingers of a flat palm. The water of the four great oceans, which are immeasurably many times larger than our Earth, is scorched by the sun until only as much remains as the imprint of a cow's hoof, and then until the water is so little that it barely covers the fingers, until finally it all dries up completely, and the great earth becomes so dry that not a bit of moisture remains.

When the water of the four great oceans had just formed, where did the water come from? There is no place it came from. In the end, most of the water of the four great oceans perished and evaporated—where did the evaporated water go? Did it go into empty space? If empty space contained that much water, it could not hold it all; and if there were water in empty space, it would no longer be called empty space—it would be called a great ocean. Therefore, when the water of the great oceans disappears, it has nowhere to go. Such is the illusory nature of the water element: it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, from emptiness to emptiness. The entire trichiliocosm is just this illusory, and the buddha-lands of the worlds in the ten directions are likewise just this illusory—arising and ceasing, ceasing and arising—all of them are not to be attached to. The nature of the water element is empty in the first place when it arises, and it is also empty when it ceases; from emptiness to emptiness, there is nothing at all.