In the Lankavatara Sutra it is said,
Outside, actually, no form is concrete—
It is our mind appearing out there;
Until they understand the mind,
Babes conceive only the material world.Our country, our homeland, and our own houses are like containers, and our
children, our local and national community, all four-footed animals, birds of the
air, and insects—in short, all sentient beings inhabiting this world—are like the
contents of those containers. First, to analyze the container and the contents, we
will look at the spatial existence of the container. To take a drinking cup as an
example, if we ask where the cup exists, there is no doubt that it sits upon the
table. And then when we ask where the table is, the answer would be that it rests
inside the house. Then asking where the house is located, we hear that it stands in
such and such place in such and such a country, and so on. Scientists believe that
the world is round, that it was created by the “big bang,” and that it revolves
around the sun, like the other planets. If we ask them what the spatial location of
this world is, their reply must be that it rests in space. And if they are asked where
space rests, they answer that it rests upon its constituent invisible particles. And
where do those particles rest? They sit upon other, smaller, invisible particles. And
what is the ultimate basis of these particles? Even the most reputable scientists
have no definitive answer to that.
A solid material object must contain some indestructible substance if it is to be
described as truly existent. Without an essential substance, material objects cannot
be said “to exist.” If a thing is substantial, it needs to have substance. Without some
other thing “to exist upon,” it cannot be called an existent. It is an undeniable truth
that the ultimate particles have no substance. Whatever thousands or millions of
arguments there may be to prove otherwise, the conclusion, the valid truth, must
be that physical reality is without substance and is therefore what, in this analysis,
we call “unreal.” But who believes this statement?
The inimitable Gendun Chophel says in An Ornament of Nagarjuna’s Mind,
The tiger’s witness is the yak; the yak’s witness is the goat; the goat’s witness is
the bird; the bird’s witness is the worm: ultimately valid truth depends upon
the worm.In general, whether scholar or fool, we base our reasoning upon direct personal
experience: this we consider ultimate. But how can it be trusted when, for
example, many things that we thought good during childhood become intolerable
when we grow up and when many principles in which we now adamantly believe
will later become untenable? In the past, great scholars unanimously believed that
this world was flat like a plate; in later centuries great scientists like Galileo
believed that it was like a ball; still later scientists changed the concept, believing
that the world is shaped like an orange, with the surface near the two poles
flattened. Scientists are still investigating the matter. There is no certainty about its