be removed instantaneously.
The peerless Rongzompa, quoting from a Mahayana sutra in Applying the
Mahayana Method, says, “Through an understanding of the nonexistence of karma
and its nonmaturation, the obscurations of the bodhisattva’s primal awareness are
removed.” Consider the case of king Indrabodhi, whose realization of pure
presence and release were simultaneous. Of course, if it is suggested that this
renders meaningless whatever Shakyamuni Buddha taught in the four noble
truths about karma and its effect, what is to be cultivated and what is to
abandoned, and so on, that is not so. Renunciation, antidotes, and the doctrine of
the four noble truths regarding what to adopt and what to abandon are taught to
less intelligent individuals and to academics and intellectuals so that they may be
led into the Mahayana. Once they enter into the Mahayana and study well, they
will gradually attain realization.
1.19 RECONCILIATION OF THE VIEW THAT THE WORLD IS AN EMPTY, UNREAL SUBJECTIVE
DELUSION WITH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW THAT IT IS COMPOSED OF ATOMS
Those who want to enter fully into the buddha-dharma should have faith in the
ineffable, unvocalized side of the Buddha’s message. Of the two types of student,
the dull and the bright, the dull have faith in the inexpressible due to trust in their
lama and the Buddhist scriptures. The bright explore the nature of phenomena
and realize that appearances are merely nominal concepts of the mind, like the
reflection of the moon in water that appears to be real but cannot be located in the
upper, lower, or middle part of a container. Although they see the same object in
different ways, many people mistakenly believe that the object has some
substantial existence. This is like a person sleeping in a very small house who,
while dreaming, believes that hundreds of dream elephants are able to fit inside it.
Scientists believe that all things are made of collections of atoms. Water, for
example, is an aggregation of three atoms—one atom of oxygen and two atoms of
hydrogen. The world and the beings residing in it are all similar aggregations.
Buddha, too, accepted the appearance of things even though all phenomena are of
the nature of emptiness. In The Heart Sutra, it is said, “Form is emptiness;
emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than
emptiness.” All experience arises from emptiness. Emptiness is nothing other than
the nature of appearances. What appears is thus the ultimate nature of experience.
Buddhists assert that no matter what particle nuclear physicists might discover
in the future, it will not possess a solid core, no matter how small, but will be
empty of any substantial essence. It is simply impossible to find an apparent
material entity that is not in actuality unreal and empty. This is established as the
nature of reality. In his Beacon of Certainty, the very wise Ju Mipham says,
Inclining toward neither emptiness nor appearance,
No basis whatsoever can be established;
Due to the equality of that pair, in whatever appears,
The objective field may be seen in many ways.