–Volume 3(Part4)
Author: Fafu
Translator : Gemini
Hello, Dharma Friends! Welcome to this episode of the podcast contributed by the Buddhas’ Practice Incorporated of Australia.
Today, we delve deep into how the Buddha dissects the illusory nature of the Twelve Entrances (Six Sense Organs and Six Sense Objects), using the examples of the Tongue and Taste, the Body and Touch, and the Mind and Dharmas (Mental Objects). Through rigorous logic and vivid metaphors, the Buddha reveals that the Twelve Entrances are merely phenomena compounded by causes and conditions, manifesting illusorily according to karma. They have no fixed location and are not truly real.
1. The Nature of the Twelve Entrances: Illusory Manifestation Arising from the True Mind
The Buddha teaches that the Twelve Entrances are the interaction of the Six Roots and Six Objects. They manifest illusorily in accordance with karmic momentum, like a dream or a magical illusion, all being illusory concepts repeatedly conditioned and defined by living beings. Although these phenomena arise dependent on the Wondrous Bright True Mind (or Fundamental Wonderful Mind 4), they are not the True Mind itself. They have no substance apart from their objects, being merely the illusory “karmic existence.” Their fundamental essence is the “Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature,” which is pure and unchanging, being neither conditioned nor spontaneous. Today, we focus on the three groups of Roots and Objects—Tongue and Taste, Body and Touch, and Mind and Dharmas—to individually analyze their illusory nature and destroy inverted views.
2. The Illusion of Tongue and Taste:
The Buddha uses the example of Ananda begging for food and encountering delicious flavors like clarified butter, and asks: “Do these tastes arise from empty space, from the tongue, or from the food?”
- Refuting Taste Arising from the Tongue: If taste arose from the tongue, the tongue should be perpetually of the taste of clarified butter. When encountering black rock honey, it should not change. If it does not change, it cannot know other tastes; if it changes, the tongue is not a multiple entity, so how can a single tongue know many tastes?
- Refuting Taste Arising from the Food: If taste arose from the food, the food has no discriminating consciousness; how could it know its own taste? If the food knew its own taste, it would be the same as others consuming it—what concern is it of yours? How can that be called your knowing the taste?
- Refuting Taste Arising from Space: If taste arose from empty space, what taste would one know by eating empty space? If empty space were permanently salty, the people of the world would be like sea creatures, constantly subjected to the salty taste and not knowing blandness. If one does not know blandness, there is no sense of saltiness; thus, there would be nothing to know. How is this called knowing the taste? If empty space is permanent, the taste should be permanent, so why would clarified butter be needed to produce the taste?
Conclusion: Taste and Tongue have no fixed location; both are illusory. Their fundamental essence is the “Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature,” neither conditioned nor spontaneous.
3. The Illusion of Body and Touch:
The Buddha uses the example of “rubbing the head with the hand” and asks: Does the “knowing” of this tactile sensation reside in the hand or the head?
- Refuting the Ability to Touch in the Hand: If the touch is in the hand, the head has no knowing (consciousness). Thus, there is no touch, yet the head actually possesses knowing.
- Refuting the Ability to Touch in the Head: If the touch is in the head, the hand is useless, and the head could touch itself. This cannot be called the hand and head touching each other.
- Refuting Each Separately Possesses Knowing: If the hand and head each separately possess knowing and touch, then Ananda would have two bodies.
- Refuting Hand and Head as One Entity: If the head and hand are one entity, the formation of touch is impossible, as touch requires a toucher (the agent) and a touched (the object) to meet. The toucher has knowing, and the touched has no knowing.
- Refuting Hand and Head as Two Entities: If they are two entities, where does the touch reside? In the hand (the toucher) but not the head (the touched)? Or in the head but not the hand? Yet both the hand and head have sensation, and empty space cannot form the touch with you.
Conclusion: The sense of touch and the body have no fixed location; both are illusory. Their fundamental essence is the “Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature,” neither conditioned nor spontaneous. (The sensation of contact is fundamentally non-existent.)
4. The Illusion of Mind and Dharmas (Mental Objects):
The Buddha uses the example of the Dharma Object imagined by the Mind Root—such as a tiger, which is categorized as good, evil, or neutral—and asks: Is this Dharma Object inherent in the mind, or does it have a separate location apart from the mind?
- Refuting the Dharma Object is Identical to the Mind: If the Dharma Object (like the imagined tiger) is identical to the mind, then it is not a real tiger that the mind conditions upon (is the object of), so how can it have a location?
- Refuting the Dharma Object has a Separate Location Apart from the Mind: If the Dharma Object is separate from the mind and has another location, is its nature known by the mind or not known?
- If it is known, then it is the mind, which contradicts it being separate from the mind. Furthermore, it is different from the mind that knows, and is not a real tiger, yet it is co-extensive with the mind—how can you say it is your mind yet different from you?
- If it is not known, since the Dharma Object is neither form, sound, smell, taste, aggregation/separation, cold/warmth, nor the characteristic of empty space, where does it reside? Form and space have no representation, and there is no independent space outside the human realm to contain the Dharma Object.
Conclusion: The Mind and Dharma Object have no location; both are illusory. Their fundamental essence is the “Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature,” neither conditioned nor spontaneous.
5. Summary: The Twelve Entrances are All Vain, the Fundamental Tathagata-garbha
The Buddha through the dissection of Tongue and Taste, Body and Touch, and Mind and Dharmas, reveals the illusory nature of the Twelve Entrances:
- No Fixed Location: Tongue and Taste, Body and Touch, Mind and Dharmas, all have no fixed location, and no substance separate from their objects. They are merely phenomena compounded by conditions and manifested illusorily by karma.
- Destroying Inverted Views: The mistaken notions of “where there is a thing, there is knowing” and “where there is knowing, there must be a thing” are refuted. These phenomena have no producer or recipient; they are purely an illusory manifestation of the Self-Nature.
- The True Suchness Nature: Although the Twelve Entrances are illusory, their fundamental essence is the “Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature,” which is neither produced nor destroyed, bright and brilliant, neither conditioned nor spontaneous.
The Twelve Entrances are like a dream: though they arise dependent on the Wondrous Bright True Mind, they are like images on a screen—they have no true reality. Any feeling or sensation is an illusory self-deception, illusorily gained and illusorily lost. Only the True Suchness Nature remains constant and unchanging. Thank you.
