..續本文上一頁ng an elephant, if we look at the elephant we see feet, a trunk, a torso, and a head, and so on; we see the various parts of the elephant, but no particular single quality or part is the elephant itself. Thus everything that appears to us as a single object is really a compound.

　　Or if I look at my watch, it might look like a single thing, like just a watch. But if I take my robe and cover half of the watch, I can immediately see that the watch must be a compounded thing, because two parts of the watch are capable of behaving in two distinct manners - the part being visible and the part not being visible. Therefore I can see that what seemed to be a single unitary thing is actually a compound.

　　In the same way, nothing that we designate as a single thing is in reality a single unitary thing at all, because there is no single, uncompounded reality by which the object can be identified. Even our own bodies are composed of separate parts. No single quality by which the whole can be identified is ever found under analysis.

　　In short, we can see that all phenomena are compounds; there is no unitary essential quality to anything. Everything that we experience, all that appears, is analyzable into smaller and smaller parts. The designation “single unit” is merely a convenient mental label for what is in fact a collection of parts, of particles. This demonstrates the emptiness of large objects or gross forms.

　　Even if we examine tiny particles, apparently invisible and intangible particles, we discover nothing unitary exists. As Vasubandhu said in his Compendium of Knowledge, if compounds are composed of tiny particles, then these particles must relate to other particles in such a manner as to build up compounds. In relating to other particles, they must do so in terms of directions. That is, each particle would have another particle to the east of it, to the west of it, to the north, and to the south, as well as having a particle above it and below it. In relating to a number of other particles, any given particle would be showing more than one characteristic and in having more than one characteristic, that is, east, west, north, and south, and so on; it reveals its own compounded nature. Therefore, it could not itself be an invisible, intangible, unitary particle. Thus the notion of unitary particles as the building blocks of the world is a fallacy.

　　Alternatively, if we were to propose that smallest particles have no quality of directionality, but connect with only one other particle in a total relationship, we can see that this too could not be the case by examining how such a situation might come about. If two particles were interconnected in such an integral fashion, the one particle would have to exactly pervade the other, for if it did not, this would show the compounded nature of both particles. A third particle would also have to pervade exactly the original particle, and so on with all particles in samsara. Thus the totality of existence would be subsumed in one particle. Such a particle would include more particles, but would get no bigger. It could not serve as a basis for the building up of compounds; it would not have multiplicity of characteristics observable in our world.

　　So, in examining objective appearance in this way, it becomes obvious that there is no essential quality to any “thing.” There being no essential quality in any of the appearances which nonetheless occur, we may conclude that all is emptiness, all is of the nature of shunyata.

　　As for the nature of the mind, we all tend to feel that we have a mind which experiences and recognizes things. But if we examine the experience of mind, we see that there is not a single thing which is the mind we are said to have. Consciousness has many different compone…

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