The Self-Repair of the Rūpa-Kāya Is the Functional Role of the Ālaya-Vijñāna

The physical body possesses a self-repairing mechanism: when damaged, it automatically mends itself; when internal organs are impaired, it automatically repairs them; when exhausted, it restores energy after rest; after surgery, incisions heal automatically, and missing muscles, skin, and other tissues are naturally replenished. Lost blood can be regenerated; when the stomach and intestines lack food, the body automatically replenishes energy—grain abstinence to regulate the physical body utilizes this miraculous mechanism. What mechanism is this? Whose function is at work? When did this wondrous source of life first emerge?

Master Kuiji, in his previous life, entered meditation for thousands of years awaiting the advent of Śākyamuni Buddha but missed it while in samādhi, so he intended to enter samādhi again to await the coming of Maitreya Buddha. A human body sustained by the four great elements and food can remain in samādhi for thousands or even tens of thousands of years without eating or drinking, experiencing no discomfort, and can enter samādhi for millions of years without perishing. What mechanism sustains the life of Master Kuiji and others who achieve longevity through meditation? It is said that an experiment found thin people live longer than the obese, and those who eat less outlive those with larger appetites. What principle underlies this?

Modern medicine and health theories assert that one must sleep between 11 PM and 1 AM (the hour of Zi), otherwise staying up late prevents internal organs from resting and recuperating, leading to physical depletion. Yet, sitting in meditation during this period causes no harm. The Buddha encouraged his disciples to diligently practice, urging ceaseless effort during the early, middle, and late watches of the night. No records indicate any physical discomfort among the bhikṣus; on the contrary, their energy increased, and their minds became sharper. Modern medicine also claims that skipping breakfast increases the risk of gallstones, yet during the Buddha’s time, monastics ate only once a day at noon, and no one was known to suffer from gallstones. What mechanism accounts for this?

Basking in sunlight automatically replenishes the body’s yang energy and vitality. If one focuses the mind in contemplation, the replenishment increases, and the body’s regulation improves. Except for formless realm devas, who lack physical bodies and thus require no nourishment from the four great elements, all sentient beings with physical forms depend on the four great elements for sustenance. Beings in higher realms require fewer and more subtle, refined forms of the four great elements. Due to their meager merit, beings in lower realms must endure coarse, inferior forms of the four great elements.

Humans reside in the middle level of the desire realm, not among its highest forms of life. The four great elements they experience are relatively crude, yet they consider what they enjoy to be superior substances, believing they consume high-quality food and drink, when in reality, it is quite coarse. The form realm devas experience the highest, most subtle four great elements, followed by desire realm devas, and then immortals. All humans are inferior to devas in terms of what they experience; not only is their food coarse, but it is also filthy, lacking in color, aroma, and flavor. Due to their karmic conditions, they perceive no fault in this; instead, they cling to it with greed, much like dogs delight in excrement or insects thrive in cesspools.

All repair mechanisms of the physical body and all the four great elements it experiences are functions of the tathāgatagarbha. It is the tathāgatagarbha that, based on sentient beings’ karmic seeds and merit, creates these phenomena. Because sentient beings have karmic connections with the human realm of desire—possessing karmic seeds and conditions for human or animal rebirth—for the five aggregates to survive normally in the desire realm, the physical body must be adequately endowed with the four great elements as nutrients. If the four great elements in the physical body are deficient, the normal functioning of the five aggregates is affected. The tathāgatagarbha then automatically replenishes the missing four great elements according to karmic seeds and conditions. If karmic obstacles prevent replenishment, the five aggregates continue to function imperfectly within an incomplete physical body, manifesting the sentient being’s adverse karmic conditions. For sentient beings with ample wholesome karma, no matter what the physical body lacks, the tathāgatagarbha automatically replenishes it. If replenishment is impossible, it reveals the karmic retribution of an incomplete, defective physical body resulting from unwholesome karma.