宗鏡錄 68.15

68.15

Answer: Coarse and fine forms are both transformed from consciousness. Since they exist from consciousness, external form is completely empty. Therefore a sūtra says: 'The nature of form is inherently empty; it is not empty because form is destroyed.' For those who have not yet understood, it must be further broken down and analyzed right down to the minute atom before they will believe that emptiness appears. The Vijñaptimātratāsiddhiśāstra says: 'How can the various dharmas such as form held by other vehicles to be real apart from consciousness not exist? Because the form, non-concurrent formations, and various unconditioned dharmas they hold to are non-existent in principle. First, the form they hold to is broadly of two kinds: first, resistant form, which is composed of minute atoms; second, non-resistant form, which is not composed of minute atoms. That resistant form is definitely not truly existent, because the minute atoms that can compose it are not truly existent. That is, if minute atoms have material resistance, they should be like a vase, etc., being conventional and not real. If they have no material resistance, they should be like non-form; how could they gather together to form vases, robes, and the like? Furthermore, if minute atoms have spatial parts, they can definitely be analyzed, and thus are not truly existent; if they have no spatial parts, they are just like non-form. […] Furthermore, although they are not without form, they are transformations of consciousness. That is, when consciousness arises, through the power of internal causes and conditions, it transforms and appears as resembling the characteristics of the eyes, etc., and form, etc., and it takes these very characteristics as the supporting conditions. However, the sense faculties such as the eyes are not obtained by direct perception; because they can give rise to consciousness, they are known to exist by inference. These are merely functional capabilities, not externally composed. Since external resistant form is illogical, it should merely be the transformation and appearance of internal consciousness. What gives rise to visual consciousness and the like is called the visual faculty and the like; taking these as supports, the visual consciousness and the like arise. Because an external objective-condition for this visual consciousness and the like is non-existent in principle, one must definitely accept that what is transformed by one's own consciousness is the objective-condition, meaning that which can induce what resembles one's own consciousness. […] From this it is definitely known that what is transformed by one's own consciousness takes the characteristics of form, etc., as its objective-condition, because the darśanabhāga arises depending on them and arises bearing their characteristics. However, when consciousness transforms, according to size, it suddenly appears as a single characteristic, not separately transforming into many minute atoms to aggregate into a single object. For those who grasp coarse form as having a real substance, the Buddha spoke of minute atoms to make them eliminate and analyze it; he did not mean that forms truly possess minute atoms. Yogācāra masters, through the wisdom of conceptualization, gradually analyze the characteristics of coarse form until they cannot be analyzed further, and conventionally designate them as minute atoms. Although these minute atoms still have spatial parts, they cannot be further analyzed; if they are analyzed further, they will appear like empty space and not be called form. Therefore it is said that the minute atom is the limit of form. From this it should be known that all resistant forms are transformations of consciousness, not composed of minute atoms. The remaining non-resistant forms, being of this class, are also not truly existent; or because they are non-resistant, like the citta and caittas, they are definitely not real form. Resistant forms visibly possess characteristics of form, yet when investigated with reason, they do not even exist apart from consciousness; how much less could non-resistant forms, which visibly lack characteristics of form, be said to be real form dharmas!'