The attribution of substantiality to phenomena is exactly what the Buddha is against. The phenomenal world, including our temporal bodies, is really an illusion, that is, a spectacular illusion by which we can easily become deceived. It is especially true with our temporal body, with which we are proximate; interfacing with it and being unable to release from it. As a matter of fact, we have put our entire life into substantializing an illusion and staying bound to it! The Vimalakirti Sutra has not missed this fact, that our body is, essentially, an illusion.
“Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications. It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions. It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution. It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable and decaying every moment. The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.”
Of course, after reading the above we should not hastily draw the conclusion that ‘all is an illusion’, although from a Buddhist standpoint it would be correct to do so since the Pali word for all is “sabbe” in which ‘all’ refers to the senses and mentation.
“What, monks, is the All (sabbe)? Simply the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and odors, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, the mind (manas) and its phenomena (dhamma). This, monks, is termed the All” (S. iv. 15).
Getting back on track, the all as illusory is not unlimited. More properly, it is limited to the senses and mentation, i.e., mental phenomena (from gross to subtle grades). The problem of substantializing phenomena begins when what is non-sensory and beyond the grasp of mentation, such as mind (citta) or consciousness (vijñâna), vibrates in unison with the temporal embryo during biological conception. At this point, we as mind (citta) begin substantializing phenomena thus becoming progressively caught up in the illusory tissues of the psychophysical body we call ‘my self’.
The longer we stay in phase with this illusory “machine”, to use a word from Vimalakirti Sutra, the tendency to substantialize and crave the machine increases over time. This is where the importance of the Buddha’s teaching comes into play. In a nutshell, the Buddha is trying to teach us how to break, as much as possible, the ongoing resonnance with the illusory body that began at conception. The main goal is to liberate mind so that it is no longer in phase with the body but, instead, in phase with itself. In concert with this, we read from the Anguttara-Nikaya:
“The noble disciple unbinds his mind (citta) from things which bind, releases his mind with things which release (vimocaniyesu dhammesu cittam vimoceti), and contacts perfect release (samma-vimuttim phusati)” (AN, IV, xx, 4 [194]).
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