Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
The Tathagata explains that while the cosmic space is empty, boundless, and without form, it accommodates the interplay of five elements to manifest freely.
“Purna, you also asked: earth, water, fire, and wind, in their fundamental nature, are perfectly interpenetrating and pervade the entire dharma realm. Yet you wonder how the nature of water and fire do not annihilate one another. You further question how space and all the great earth can both pervade the dharma realm and yet do not conflict or exclude one another.
“Purna, it is like empty space: its essence is not any of the manifold forms, yet it does not obstruct those forms from manifesting. Why is this so?
“Purna, consider that vast empty space: when the sun shines, it becomes bright; when clouds gather, it turns dark; when wind stirs, it moves; after rain clears, it cleanses; when vapors condense, it seems turbid; when dust accumulates, it forms haze; when water is calm and clear, it becomes reflective. What do you think? Are these various conditioned phenomena, each distinct in nature, produced from those causes, or do they exist inherently in space?
“If they arose from those causes, Purna, then when the sun radiates brightness, the world in the ten directions should all appear in the same color of the sun. Why, then, is a distinct round sun still seen in the sky?
“If it were space that is bright, space itself should shine—so why, in the middle of the night when there are clouds and mist, is there no brightness?
“You should know that this brightness is neither from the sun nor space, yet it is not separate from the sun or space.
“Appearances, when observed, are fundamentally illusory, with nothing substantial to point to. It is like demanding flowers in the sky to bear fruit in space. How, then, can one question whether such appearances conflict with or annihilate one another?
“Their nature, however, is fundamentally real: it is merely the wondrous luminous awareness. This wondrous luminous true mind is originally neither water nor fire—why then ask whether they are incompatible? The true wondrous luminous awareness is as such.
The saha world consists of earth, water, fire, wind, and space. Purna wondered how water and fire can co-exist since they extinguish each other, and how space and earth can co-exist since space is empty, while earth—such as mountains—is obstructive.
The Tathagata explains that while the cosmic space is empty, boundless, and without form, it accommodates the interplay of five elements to manifest freely.
The [Chinese] five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.
The generating cycle is
Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → Wood
The restraining / subduing cycle is
Wood ⊣ Earth ⊣ Water ⊣ Fire ⊣ Metal ⊣ Wood
These elements coexist, mutually generating and restraining one another, transforming within the human body and throughout the entire universe.
When the sun shines, it is bright; when clouds gather, it becomes dark. When wind blows, trees sway; when rain stops, the sky clears. Are they existence or emptiness? They are both existence and emptiness and are interpenetrating. So, existence is emptiness, and vice versa.
When four people stand under the sun in four different places, each casts a shadow. Which shadow is real? The shadow itself is illusory. When the moon shines upon thousands of rivers, a moon appears on each. You see a moon on Lake Sammamish, a moon on Lake Washington, and one on Phantom Lake. So which moon is real? None of them is real; they are all illusions created by the eyes and consciousness. Even the moon in the sky has no inherent reality since one day, it will disappear too.
All conditioned phenomena in the saha world are illusory and false. The four elements can coexist without annihilating each other because they are not real. Since they are not real, it is meaningless to discuss this. All phenomena are non-phenomena, yet they are also phenomena [in the conditioned world].
Looking back through time, has Grandmaster ever been the same—from a baby, toddler, adolescent, adult, middle age, and now old age? Each stage is a temporary aggregate, constantly changing and destined to disappear. Likewise—the entire world, the sun, moon, earth, and the universe, is in constant transformation. Nothing is fixed. This confirms what the Buddha says: All conditioned phenomena are illusory and not real.
Originally, there is only the wondrous luminous true mind. All phenomena are illusory. We can see this in the everchanging world: earthquakes and snowfalls occurring in places where there were none before. Tall buildings in Bangkok were built by merely stacking bricks together without steel rods because earthquakes never affected them before. It would not be surprising if deserts one day flood and prosperous cities become deserts.