Realizing That All Dharmas Are False Distinctions and Unreal

Like a heat-haze mirage—"heat-haze mirage"—not in the cold season, but in spring and summer when the weather warms up, that's when you see this "mirage." What is it? When the sun beats down on the earth, moisture rises from the ground. When it rises, looking from afar you see a shimmering light, as if there were water—that's called a mirage. It looks like water, but when you walk over, there's nothing there. So that impression of water is false; it isn't real, yet it looks utterly real. In the same way, it's a simile for the fact that our form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are not real.

As for an echo—imagine a hollow valley, ringed by high walls with a dip in the middle. Stand on one side, make a sound, and there's a reverberation on the other, as if someone were speaking there. You sense right away: this too is false—no one is really speaking. False, not real.

Take a cloud in the sky. Clouds are false too. We look up and see a great tree; a moment later the same cloud is a fish; a moment later a lion. They're always shifting, impermanent—none of them is real.

As for foam gathered on water—along the seashore you sometimes see a great body of water where the waves collide and churn into foam. A passage in the scriptures tells of how, along the ocean, masses of foam sometimes gather into what looks like a towering white mountain. Monkeys coming down from the hills see this and wonder what on earth it could be. They think something wonderful must be inside, so they go to investigate—and at once they leap in. The other monkeys wait for news of the first, but after a very long time he doesn't come out, so they jump in too—every one of them plunges into the sea and drowns.

What does this simile point to? The foam on the water stands for the five desires of the human world—form, sound, scent, taste, and touch. We human beings feel there's something wonderful inside those desires, and everyone leaps in and can't get out.

The point is that foam gathered on water is unreal, illusory. Our body, like foam on water, is also not real. I think of a juicer: put an apple in and it becomes juice. If you had a giant juicer and dropped a person in, it'd be the same as fruit juice—seeing that, the person's body is also not real. "Like foam on water."

As for bubbles on water. A concrete pavement—once the rain begins, if you keep watching, the drops striking the surface bubble up and burst, bubble up and burst. That's what "bubbles on water" means—so it's not real either.

Take the so-called firmness of a banana tree. It sends out great broad leaves that look solid enough, but in truth it's just layers of leaves rolled around one another. Take an axe or a saw, split it open, and inside there's nothing of substance at all. Human beings are no different—our form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are all not real.

Like lightning abiding long: "Like lightning abiding long, like a fifth great element, like a sixth skandha." Earlier "like the firmness of a banana tree" seemed very solid, but in truth it isn't solid—this points to the body's lack of reality. "Like lightning abiding long" refers to a flash of lightning on a cloudy, rainy day. The flash flares and vanishes in an instant; it can't linger, can't stay in place. So long-abiding simply doesn't happen. Our body is no different either—it shifts moment by moment, rising and passing—and it's not real.

Like a fifth great element—what does "like a fifth great element" mean? The earlier similes—"like a cloud in the sky, like foam on water, like bubbles on water, like the firmness of a banana tree, like lightning abiding long"—these suggest that something appears to exist but doesn't. With "like a fifth great element," there simply isn't anything there at all. It then means our life-body is wholly empty, has nothing to it. Originally there are the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—the four mahābhūtas. If you speak of a "fifth great element," all you have are the words themselves; there is no such thing actually named a fifth great element. So it's just an empty phrase; no such thing exists. Saying our body is "like a fifth great element" is to say it has no reality at all, to observe it as empty.

Earlier, "like the moon in water," "like seeing one's face in a mirror," "like a heat-haze mirage," "like an echo," "like a cloud in the sky," "like foam on water," "like bubbles on water," "like the firmness of a banana tree," "like lightning abiding long"—these indicate it is false. "Like a fifth great element" indicates it is empty. As I mentioned, take "the moon in water"—the moon in water has no self-nature; that's what empty and non-existent means. Our body also has no self-nature, therefore it is empty and non-existent. Within ultimate emptiness, within the emptiness of self-nature, there is no form, feeling, perception, mental formation, or consciousness—and that is what emptiness and non-existence means.

As I mentioned yesterday, when we practice śamatha and vipaśyanā, we begin with the contemplation of the provisional: "Like a magician seeing the person he has conjured," "like a wise person seeing the moon in water"—this is the contemplation of the provisional. "Like a fifth great element" is the contemplation of emptiness—first the provisional, then emptiness. Contemplating the provisional shows there's no true reality within; it expresses the contemplation of the emptiness of person, the contemplation of self-emptiness. "Like a fifth great element"—observing form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness as without self-nature—is the contemplation of the emptiness of dharmas, the contemplation of self-emptiness. Form is without self-nature; feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are without self-nature. Without self-nature is what we mean by "empty."

What we're studying in the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra is the same as the Diamond Sūtra. The Diamond Sūtra says: "The past mind cannot be grasped; the present mind cannot be grasped; the future mind cannot be grasped." If we say form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are "like a fifth great element," then form is empty of self-nature, and feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are empty of self-nature. We can probably grasp how form is empty of self-nature, and how feeling, perception, and mental formations are empty of self-nature—but "consciousness" being empty of self-nature, can we easily understand that? Yet the principle is the same: our discriminating mind—this very consciousness of discrimination—also arises through conditions.

In the Consciousness-Only teaching, this dependent existence requires seeds as a causal condition. Take eye-consciousness itself—it must have seeds; that's the causal condition. It also needs the eye faculty; without it, eye-consciousness can't arise. When the eye faculty is damaged, we're blind and can't see form—so the eye faculty is a dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya). There must also be a form—blue, yellow, red, or white—as an object; that's the object condition (ālambana-pratyaya). And there must be the mental factor of attention (manasikāra), something ordinary people seldom notice. When something arises, eye-consciousness can engage its object only if attention is present—that's how the Dharma explains it. It is attention that alerts the mind, allowing eye-consciousness to move. So it is.

Attention itself is a dominant condition; the object is the object condition; the eye faculty is a dominant condition; the seeds are the causal condition. When all four conditions are present, eye-consciousness stirs into activity. Eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousness all work the same way. Lacking even one condition, they don't stir; without an object, the mind can't engage. From this we see that consciousness arises only through conditions; it cannot move on its own, so it is empty of self-nature. Apart from conditions, consciousness simply doesn't exist.

The Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra tells of a practitioner who sat in meditation and attained the first through fourth dhyānas of the form realm. Having accomplished these four dhyānas, he wished to attain a supernormal power—specifically the power of psychic mobility (ṛddhi), not clairvoyance, not clairaudience, not knowledge of others' minds. One facet of psychic mobility is that walls and mountains pose no obstacle; he can pass right through without opening a door.

How does he cultivate it? He must enter samādhi—it can't be done outside; outside samādhi there's no such power. Once in samādhi, he reflects: "All this is false; this wall is false, like cloud or fog." Up on a high mountain, sometimes we walk through cloud and mist—the sky is cloud, and when the cloud descends it becomes fog, and inside fog there's nothing to obstruct you. In samādhi he contemplates that these walls are unobstructing—present, yet as if absent; there is no real wall, nothing solid at all. After this contemplation, he reflects on his body passing through, and it does—unobstructed. Look—the wall looks just as it was; no opening has appeared in it. What does this mean? That all these things are unreal.

What do we mean by "real"? To have a determinate nature of one's own—that's what "real" means. It follows your mind: if your mind judges it illusory, it's illusory. Those of us who have not attained samādhi are caught in false discriminations and believe it is real. If someone says it's illusory, I don't believe it—and if I walk into it, I crack my head and can't get through. But one who has attained samādhi, contemplating within it, walks right through—the wall is unreal. Out of samādhi, it doesn't work; even an arhat, out of samādhi, has no such power. All of this shows that the thinking of ordinary beings is wrong—it's all illusory, inverted, deluded, unreal. Only by cultivating and learning the holy path can one gradually come to see that all dharmas are discriminations of delusion, and that they are unreal.

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says: "What former sages have known, transmitted one to another—deluded thoughts have no self-nature." "What former sages have known, transmitted one to another"—ancient buddhas transmitted the truth to the buddhas who came after, and those buddhas in turn passed it down to those who followed. Transmitted one to another in succession—the principle of the highest meaning. And what was transmitted? "Deluded thoughts have no self-nature"—all dharmas are the deluded thoughts of mind; dharmas themselves have no self-nature; it is your deluded thought that gives them their seeming nature. That's what the Dharma comes to. Suppose I think a place is solid—in truth that too is a discrimination of my own mind. I think it is not solid, that it is illusory—that too is a discrimination of the mind. Apart from the discriminations of your own mind, there's no such thing—so all matters in the world are discriminations of mind!

I've said it before: take the fact that we are men now—we never forget it, always discriminating from a man's standpoint. Women are no different: they don't forget they are women—men don't carry that feeling, but women know perfectly well they are women, and they discriminate from a woman's standpoint. It's all the same. But once this life ends and death comes, suddenly they change. Suppose someone is a man in this life: after dying, when the intermediate existence body (antarābhava) appears, that very one becomes a woman, discriminating from a woman's standpoint. Why so? "Formation conditions consciousness"—your karmic force has shifted! So when consciousness discriminates, one moment one is still a man, but the next moment, when the intermediate existence body appears, one has become a woman. Why? Because karmic force is powerful indeed—this is how it discriminates.

From this, nothing in the world is fixed! What we consider real isn't real; it can change at any moment. "Deluded thoughts have no self-nature"—all dharmas take deluded thought as their essential nature. Apart from our deluded thought, dharmas themselves have no self-nature; they are unreal, empty and non-existent; in themselves they have nothing at all. Why do we feel there's something there? It's the discriminations of our own mind. Those discriminations are reflected outward, as if they had nothing to do with the mind.

The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra says: if you are able to observe (as in our practice of śamatha and vipaśyanā) "form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is form"—this shows that one must observe conditioned dharmas as empty of self-nature, right within the conditioned. You can't set aside conditioned dharmas and observe the emptiness of all dharmas on their own—that cannot be done. You must, through conditioned dharmas, see that they themselves are empty of self-nature. When you succeed, at the moment of correspondence with ultimate emptiness, all dharmas cease to appear! It's hard to grasp: mountains, rivers, and the great earth are clearly right here—how could they not appear? Hard indeed.

But if we sit in meditation often, something unexpected will surface. What happens when you sit a great deal? Your own body is gone! We touch it with our hands—this body is clearly here. You feed it, keep it comfortable; if it goes without food for days it feels uncomfortable. So there is, plainly, a real, substantial thing here. But when meditation reaches correspondence, this body vanishes. Believe it or not, it's a fact—it happens.

If you haven't studied śamatha and vipaśyanā and you meet this state, your mind cries, "Oh—where am I?"—and you may feel frightened. Such things happen. But if you have studied, it's just your śamatha and vipaśyanā advancing—you've reached the stage of the anāgamya (pre-access) dhyāna, and this is what arises. Likewise, you won't feel the existence of this house either. They say there's a platform here, a chair there—but in meditation, when that state arises, all of this is gone. But who is the one who knows they're gone? That's another question entirely. Let's set that aside for now.

The point: nothing in the world is real. Through your own diligent practice of śamatha and vipaśyanā, you'll experience this for yourself—and even when you attain the four dhyānas of the form realm and develop supernormal powers, you'll sense that none of that is real either.