Day 2 Only the Present Moment

After realizing the Dharma body, there is not a thing;
Original self-nature is the innate Buddha.
The five skandhas ─ the empty comings and goings of floating clouds;
The three poisons ─ the vacant appearing and disappearing of water bubbles.


Your body, which you normally think is the self, together with all the phenomena that you experience with your senses, are the five skandhas, or five aggregates: form, sensation, perception, volition and consciousness. Yung-chia says that the five skandhas are like floating clouds that come and go in the sky. Originally, the sky is pure. Clouds appear, move across the sky, and disappear. The clouds are not the sky. There is no concrete connection between sky and clouds, yet the sky is not separate from the clouds.

The five skandhas are like these clouds. We all think we have distinct selves, minds and bodies. But our bodies, as well as the selves we identify with, did not exist before we were born. After we die, our bodies and selves will be gone again. Like the sky before and after clouds, the world does not contain us before we are born and after we die. There is no enduring "I."