Metaphorically speaking, it is like an ocean: the waves arising in the ocean water are like the worlds of the cosmos produced by causes and conditions; while the bubbles of foam on the waves are like the individual bodies of living beings, each with its own particular form produced by causes and conditions. Although the phenomena of the waves and the bubbles have their individual dissimilarities, they are never apart from the single inherent nature of water. But a metaphor is just a similitude, not the essence of the thing itself.
Living beings, because they cannot experientially arrive at the ultimate end of the fundamental substance of their own nature, thus abandon the root and pursue the branches, each clinging to their own views, their own knowledge, considering it to be the ultimate. Thus it is that sentient beings rest on their own subjectivity to formulate different knowledge and opinions of the world.
But in reality, subjectivity and objectivity both belong to the discriminating function of thinking consciousness; and the knowledge and perception of thinking consciousness itself functions in dependence on the causes and conditions of the body and the material world, so they themselves are unreal and cannot sufficiently determine the existence or nonexistence of truth. If only people could practice meditation with the thinking consciousness in their own minds quieted, gradually they could realize that the functions of body and mind are changing and inconstant, like the world of phenomena, deceptive and unreal. Seeking progress step by step from this point, analyzing layer by layer, finding out all about human nature and the nature of all things, arriving at the unique body of suchness in which body, mind, and the cosmos are calm and unperturbed, not dwelling in existence, not falling into voidness, one can then realize the primal and ultimate truth of the cosmos and human life.
Shakyamuni called that "true suchness," or the "nirvanic essence," or the "essence of the matrix of the realization of suchness," or "come from suchness." In a broad sense, these are different names for the basic substance of cosmic life. Therefore he recognized that it is not ultimately true to call it either void or existent. There is only one way, which is to arrive at physical and mental stillness and silence, and then seek realization within this stillness and silence. However, that basic substance of cosmic life is inconceivable. "Inconceivable" is a technical term used in the context of methods for cultivating realization; it means that the object cannot be arrived at by ordinary conscious thought or deliberation. So this term "inconceivable" is not to be misunderstood as meaning "unthinkable."
CHAPTER 4
Mahayana Buddhism and Hinayana Buddhism
The contents of Shakyamuni's thought that I have spoken of are the overall essentials of what is generally called Buddhist studies. In Buddhist studies, it is usually customary to distinguish in terms of Mahayana (Great Vehicle) and Hinayana (Small Vehicle); in Chinese Buddhist studies and Buddhism, the Mahayana and Hinayana stand side by side, but the comparatively greater inclination is toward the Mahayana. Buddhist studies currently popular in the West mostly concentrate on the Hinayana, recognizing it as the original Buddhism, and of course the Southern tradition of Buddhism in the countries of Southeast Asia are all based on the Hinayana. To give one a foothold of understanding, in the following discussion I will take a relatively simple route, explaining the Buddhist studies of the Hinayana in terms of three items: philosophy, practice, and methods of seeking realization.
Hinayana Thought
In Hinayana thought, a number of general terms are derived from the analysis of mind and body, such as the five skandhas, the three poisons, the twelve faculties and data fields, and the eighteen elements that determine all mental processes. The five skandhas are translated in Chinese as the five shadows or five clusters, representing the sense of darkness and accumulation. The five shadows consist of these five items: form, sensation, conception, activity (volition), and consciousness.
The shadow of form includes whatever is visibly manifest, such as color, size, and space, as well as what is not visibly manifest, such as abstractions, hallucinations, and so forth. The word "form" in Chinese sometimes represents sexuality, but in Chinese Buddhism it is very rarely used to represent sexual desire. In sum, the form shadow includes the four gross elements of the physical and biological body: earth (hard substances), water (flowing liquids), fire (the capacity for heat), and wind (vaporization).
The shadow of sensation refers to the biological sense of feeling as well as to psychological reaction. The shadow of conception refers to the thinking function of discursive ideational consciousness. The shadow of activity refers to the kinetic energy of instinctive movement and activity of body and mind. The shadow of consciousness refers to the spiritual substance of mental function.
Because of the basic psychological evils produced by our bodies and minds in association with the world of physical facts and human affairs, there also come to be the so-called three poisons of greed, anger, and folly. The older Buddhist translations, before the Sui and T'ang dynasties, render these three poisons as lust, wrath, and folly. Due to the different evils produced by the three poisons, there are three kinds of psychological evils, which are greed, anger, and folly; four kinds of evils of speech, which are lying, vilification, duplicity, and frivolity; and three kinds of evils of the body, which are murder, theft, and rape.
Having encompassed the functions of the human mind and body under the rubric of five shadows, at the same time Buddhism also distinguishes the relationship between body-mind and the physical world in terms of twelve sense faculties and data fields:
| Six Sense Faculties | Six Data Fields |
| eyes | form/color |
| ears | sound |
| nose | odor |
| tongue | flavor |
| body | tactile feeling |
| mind | mind phenomena |
Among these, the only one belonging to the sphere of psychology is the thought pattern of the intellect; as for the rest, such as the tactile feelings generated by the body, all are in the realm of biological and physical functions.
Then there are the four truths and twelve causal conditions, which relate to the view of human life and the worldview. The four truths are suffering, accumulation, extinction, and the Way. This says that all in the world of human life is suffering, pure suffering without pleasure, yet beings lack knowledge and take suffering for pleasure. Suffering is generally categorized in terms of eight pains: birth, old age, sickness, death, not getting what is sought, separation from loved ones, being together with the uncongenial, and flareup of the five shadows. All this is called the truth of suffering.
Because living beings spontaneously pursue passions, they thereby collect and accumulate causes of suffering and so produce suffering as a result, mistaking it for pleasure; this is called the truth of accumulation. If one would extinguish the causes of suffering and the resulting suffering, to arrive at detachment from suffering and enjoyment of bliss, this is called the truth of extinction. Based on this premise, it is inevitable to wish to seek realization of the fruition of the Way, to sublimate human life and attain the ultimate access to reality; this is called the truth of the Way.
Furthermore, since all things and affairs in the human world are changing and unstable, fundamentally lacking in permanent continuity, it is called "impermanent." Because everything in human life is pure suffering without pleasure, it is called "painful." Since all is insubstantial, it is called "empty." Moreover, analyzing the body, mind, and world, we find that there is ultimately no existence of self therein; the so-called world, body, and mind are just supports of self, and are not the reality of self at all, so they are called "selfless." Thus the overall view of the world of human life refers to it as "impermanent," "painful," "empty," and "selfless."
The twelve causal conditions start