The Eighteen Realms | There Is No Suffering

Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no volition, no consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought.
There is no realm of sight, Through to no realm of cognition.In the opening passage, the Heart Sutra first proclaims the emptiness of the five skandhas as whole. In this passage it now goes on to state emptiness of each skandha, analyzing them into the six sense faculties, the six sense objects, and the six sense consciousnesses, thus comprising the eighteen realms ( dhatus). One of the five methods of stilling the mind21 is contemplating on the divisions and boundaries of the dharmas, which is in fact, contemplating the eighteen realms.

In addressing the interrelations of these three sets of phenomena, we divide physical forms into inner and outer. Inner form refers to the six sense faculties. Outer form refers to the six sense objects. The six sense consciousnesses arise through the interaction of sense faculties and sense objects. Seeing is one faculty, and shape, size, and color make up its object. Hearing is another faculty, and sounds are its object. The same is true for the nose and smells, the tongue and taste, the body and physical sensation. These, the five ordinary senses, we clearly understand; the sixth faculty, the mind, is harder to understand.

First of all, the mind faculty ( mana) contains a physical and a mental component. The mind’ s sense objects are the mental phenomena people identify with, and include all kinds of thinking and tones of emotion, plus the symbols we use to understand and communicate these ideas and feelings. In fact, besides the five sense faculties and the five corresponding sense objects, all phenomena are sense objects of the mind. They range from enthusiasm to dread, desires to erroneous view, lethargy to distraction, verbal language to icons. One characteristic of these mental objects is that they always connect to the past or future, and are never in the present. Only sensation—a sense organ contacting a sense object—happens in the present. The consciousness aspect of each sense organ—that related to perception, interpretation, and response—is already past. And, as we stated earlier, the consciousness aspect of each sense organ is actually part of the sixth consciousness.
The Surangama Sutra describes the methods that twenty-five great bodhisattvas used to attain liberation. These methods of practice include meditations upon the four elements, the six sense faculties, the six categories of sense objects, and six consciousnesses.

Using any of these methods, a practitioner can gain liberation. It is the same as what is described in the Heart Sutra. Furthermore, you need not practice all twenty-five methods. One is enough. Like a room with several doors, once you have entered the room, it does not matter which door you used.

For example, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva contemplated the emptiness of sound. Bodhisattva Universal Vision contemplated the emptiness of the eye. Ksitigarbharaja Bodhisattva contemplated the element of earth, and Sariputra contemplated the emptiness of perception of his mind. In your practice, you can contemplate the nature of a sense faculty, its sense object, or the sense consciousness. The sense faculties and objects are the physical and psychological components inside and outside the body. If you successfully complete your contemplation and wisdom arises, then the practice is realized. The goal is to realize that while the sense faculty, the sense object, and the sense consciousness are empty, they also exist. This is the Mahayana realization: that emptiness and existence are the same. Because everything constantly changes, there is no real existence. Phenomena come, seeming to emerge from emptiness, and return back to emptiness. This is the result of causes and conditions coming together. Proper contemplation is precisely the realization of this emptiness.

Actually, you cannot contemplate a sense faculty and exclude its object and the related consciousness. They must all interact, for they inseparable. For instance, in talking about the eye, you must eventually introduce the object of sight, and the consciousness that conditions seeing. None of the three has true independent existence. Without object to look at, the eye does not function. If the eye is not present, then objects do not exist in a visual sense. Of course you might still be able to touch an object, but you would probably be unable to get an overall impression of its shape and size, and you would know nothing of its color. Colors, and to a large degree shapes, have no independent existence apart from the sense faculty of seeing. The third element—eye consciousness, which is one aspect of the primary mind, or sixth consciousness—is a mental phenomenon, but it cannot exist apart from its sense faculty and the sense object. Faculty and object must interact for volitional consciousness, or cognition, to arise. This interaction, in fact, includes the skandhas of sensation and perception. In your practice however, you may emphasize one over the other, or approach the interaction through one of the three. It is a matter of individual choice.

Through practice and contemplation, you will learn to constantly remind yourself that whatever you see is empty. None of the three components—sense faculty, sense object, or sense consciousness—stands alone. There must be interaction and interrelation. In other words, emptiness is also interconnectedness.

What I have said for seeing applies to all of the other sense faculties. There is no need to go into detail with each one of them. You may choose to contemplate seeing, hearing, or any of the other faculties. If you do it correctly, awareness of the other senses will fall away. For instance, if you are intensely contemplating sound, you will not be aware of sights, odors, flavors, or feelings. Unless you isolate the sense faculty being contemplated, there are too many distractions, and your mind will scatter. Among these methods of contemplation, the eye and ear are probably the easiest to practice, because sights and sounds are always readily present. You may not be sensitive enough to constantly focus on tastes and odors. Of course, one might include the awareness of breath as a component of the scent faculty, but it is not truly part of the sense of smell. Your attention is on the sensations associated with breathing, or with the number of breaths, but not odors. Methods involving breathing are more closely related to the sense of touch. Although contemplating light uses the eyes, objects, and the eye consciousness, it is not exactly the method being described here.
To practice the contemplation I am describing, instead of focusing the mind on an external object, directly contemplate the nature of a sense faculty, its sense object, and consciousness in order to realize that they are fundamentally empty.

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