Five developments (illusion being, receiving, thinking, acting, and awareness) are empty: The concept of the five developments is one of the Buddha’s most famous teachings. It describes the idea that life has two parts united as one.

The first part, Illusion being, describes the idea of all-existing forms, including empty space, light and darkness.

The second part is the other four developments: receiving, thinking, acting and awareness–describe the idea of consciousness.

Consciousness is the ability to be aware of all existing form. The understanding comes in a clear, sequential way. It begins with receiving information of illusion being. Thinking takes place when one organizes and analyzes that information. Afterwards, one’s consciousness acts on or reacts to that information. When consciousness forms have a clear impression from receiving, thinking, and acting, it then has developed what is known as awareness.

Why are these two parts–illusion being and consciousness (together as five developments)–empty?
To understand this question we must first understand what Illusion being and Consciousness are and what the relationship between these two things is. In Buddhism, Illusion being and Consciousness are the two basic parts of life united together as one. This is the truth of life. These two parts cannot be separated because they come from the same essence. They exist together as one piece of paper has two sides.

Illusion Being is governed by the “changeable” kind of truth. This kind of truth is one that does not remain constant as circumstances or points of view change. This change may occur between various perspectives, or it may occur over time. We see this kind of truth is shown when we look at how an ant and an elephant would see an apple. While the apple would remain the same, for the ant and the elephant its “truth” would be entirely different. For the ant the apple would be a huge mountain, but for the elephant it would only be a little bite.

We can also easily illustrate how what we call “the truth” changes over time. This time

the example is from a human point of view. A few hundred years ago it would have been true to say that the trip from Paris to Rome would have been a long and difficult one. But today this would not be true. Now, rather than taking an arduous trip on foot, one would simply take a short trip on an airplane. What was true in the 1800s is no longer true today.

The field of medicine provides dozens of similar examples. Many deadly or crippling diseases, such as polio and syphilis, were incurable as recently as one hundred years ago. Now this is no longer true.

In contrast to Illusion Being (the changeable kind of truth), there is consciousness (the eternal truth). According to Buddhism, consciousness is awareness ability, which has six functions. These include the eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, the nose consciousness, the tongue consciousness, the body consciousness, and the mind consciousness.

This kind of truth for the ants, elephants, fish, birds, and human beings are all the same. Each has it the awareness ability to feel life, though what they are aware of may vary. All living things need awareness ability to sense the different life forms.

Life’s deep mystery arises from the fact that the changeable kind of truth (Illusion Being) and eternal truth (consciousness) are two different parts of life, but they are united as one.

To understand their relationship better we have to understand the concept of Illusion being in more detail. Some commentators translate the Buddhist concept of Illusion Beings as “matter,” but this definition can confuse Westerners. This is because Western minds tend to think of “matter” as limited only solid objects. To Buddhists this concept also includes what exists between the “matters”–empty space.

Further, this term emphasizes the fact that all this “matter” is an illusion. It is illusion

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because all forms are constantly changing. For example, the caterpillar turns into a cocoon and later becomes a butterfly. From the caterpillar’s point of view the cocoon and butterfly are illusions. When it changes to a cocoon, the caterpillar and butterfly become the illusions. Once it starts to fly as a butterfly, the caterpillar and cocoon are the illusions.

As things constantly change, each moment that now seems real to us will soon become illusions. When a human being is a baby, death is far away like an illusion. When the baby grows up, gets old, and approaches his death, the memory of being an infant is like an illusion. As every baby carries its future death, all dead men carry a new future reborn life.

Each life is like a rainstorm, which falls and becomes a river. This river flows to the ocean, where heat turns some of its surface into steam, which forms clouds, which produce raindrops. These raindrops fall down and turn again into a river.

Life, too, is a circle like this. Everything constantly changes. While present circumstances may seem real at any given moment, one must remember that this feeling is only an illusion. This feeling exists only for a short time in the present moment. As quickly as a bubble disappears in the air or a thunderstorm’s lightning bolt vanishes or a shooting star dissolves into darkness, that is how quickly this illusion changes.

Human existence is just a lifetime dream. When we dream, everything seems to exist realistically. Once we wake up, however, we know that these are just illusions that actually don’t exist. Illusion being (the appearance of life forms) is like this. The things we experience now are the elements of our dream. They seem real to us until we are awakened.

Illusion being means that things constantly change into other things. Yet, as they change they exist only in the present moment. To understand this we need only to look at the

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stars in the sky. The light of the stars seems real and present. But the truth is that the light we see began traveling millions of years ago. By the time this light reaches us, the star from which it came may have already vanished.

Thus we have the sense of past, present, and future. Before the light touches our eyes, we think of it as existing in the future. The light we currently see was given off in the past. But for the light there is only the present. When the star releases it, while it travels, and when it touches our eye it is always in the present. From this perspective there is no past or future.

As this is true for starlight, so is it true for human consciousness. We exist at all times only in the present. When we miss something from our past or when we think about our future, these activities occur to us only in the present.

This idea of “present time” can be discussed in scientific as well as philosophic terms. In daily life the philosophical term for the things that we are aware of is “Illusion being”. This, as we have seen, means that everything we see is changing continuously and that we are aware of the form rather than the essence of what we experience. In modern scientific terminology, we would use the words “Time” and “Space” to describe this experience.

Everyone understands that the things we experience happen “in” Time and Space. Now, as scientists understand more about the way our universe functions, they know that things actually consist of space and time and do not simply exist “in” them. This is not easy to understand because it does not seem to be supported by our daily experience. We walk outside in the morning. All we see and feel seems to be solid and real: the door we push open, the ground we stand on, the rose we cut to place on the table.

To understand why these things are not as we conventionally understand them we must change the way we look at them. First we need to understand the meaning of the terms

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“Time” and “Space.” But comprehending even this is difficult because each term affects our understanding of the other in a fundamental way.

First let us look at Time. What we call Time is actually just the way we measure how space changes. Therefore, in truth, what we commonly refer to as Time does not exist. Space, which is constantly changing, however, does exist. And it is from our sense of space moving that we get our sense of time passing. Let us look at why this is so.

As we go through our lives, the sense of time passing is strong and seems real. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years–we seem to feel all these intervals passing as our body ages and our surrounding change.

Here is a concrete example that shows why this feeling exists–and why time itself does not exist. A person drives to a railroad crossing where a train is passing. He can count the train cars and feel the passage of time. But this way of counting is only a way of measuring the movement and speed of space changing; it does not measure any actual passage of time.

Without some way of measuring the movement of space, such as the train’s passing, time would disappear. Even when one sits quietly, he has a sense of his body moving–the heart beating, the lungs expanding and contracting, the mind thinking. If there were no movement at all in the universe, there would be no sense of time passing (space moving) and time, therefore, would not exist.

Space moving is actually just another way to describe “illusion being.” Both mean that the appearance of all life forms is a nonstop changing speed. Of course, just because all things are “illusion being” does not mean that they are insubstantial “ghost-like” illusions as many Western minds imagine illusions to be.

In Buddhism, all illusion being can appear in six different ways. They are related

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through our six senses and connected to our six consciousnesses’’. The following chart shows how each consciousness functions to sense our surroundings.

CONSCIOUSNESS

Eye consciousness darkness
Ear consciousness Nose consciousness Tongue consciousness Body consciousness Mind consciousness awareness

uses

uses uses uses uses uses

BODY

the eyes

the ears the nose the tongue the body the mind

to sense

to sense to sense to sense to sense to sense

SURROUNDINGS

brightness or

sound or silence openness or blockades taste or lack of taste contact or separation awareness or lack of

This chart shows that the Buddhist
understanding of their function than they are usually given credit for by Western thinkers. For instance, when describing the eyes one would usually say that they see forms and colors. But Buddhism describes what they see as brightness or darkness. This is because all forms and colors can only be seen through light, which is brightness. Describing things only in terms of forms and color does not take this into account and it also overlooks the sensation of darkness. In Buddhism, darkness also can be seen. So it is with each sense. Rather than merely sensing a distinct object, each consciousness encompasses the fullest spectrum of sensation.

There is another Buddhism describes the relationship between consciousness and illusion being: Our world consists of four eternal qualities, which exist in the empty space with consciousness.

The four eternal qualities are wind and fire (which are energy) and water and earth

thinking about consciousness encompasses a wider

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(which are materials). These four qualities are “illusion being” (which is space moving). The earth, solar system and galaxies are made up of the same four qualities. A human body is also united by these four qualities. Wind is the air that we breathe. Fire is our body temperature. Water is our circulating blood. (Ninety percent of our body is water.) Earth is our muscles, bones, ligaments, etc..

The four eternal qualities are united like the planets, solar system, and galaxies, which are all twisting in the pure empty space. Actually the four basic qualities and empty space are the same essence. Their essence is the pure illusion power. All things in the desire world exist as this pure illusion power. When this pure illusion power moves at a certain speed in an organized form (which will become the four qualities) these qualities unite to create all the life forms in existence. When this pure illusion power moves in the fast free speed without organization it looks like pure empty space.

In Buddhism, this type of pure empty space is different from the type of empty space, which does not move and is not made up of pure illusion power. Pure illusion power means moving speed power. The moving empty space and four qualities all come from this pure illusion power. But this pure illusion power moves in the non-moving pure existence. This type of non-moving pure existence is known as consciousness.

According to Buddhism consciousness has no form. Since it has no form, it cannot move. It can only feel the movement of pure illusion power (illusion being). Consciousness first feels the sense of “I” existing with a body. After that it continually feels the movement of its surroundings. This idea is difficult to grasp, because people generally think consciousness exists because we have a physical I (illusion being), since our physical I is continually changing so consciousness is constantly changing as well. This error occurs because we confuse our consciousness with our sense of awareness, a common mistake. Buddhism teaches that consciousness and awareness are two distinctly different things.

Let us look at the example of Eye Consciousness. Eye consciousness has the ability to see.

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But the result of what we see is “awareness” and not “consciousness.” Seeing awareness comes from a combination of the ability to see the tools of the eyes themselves, and the surroundings–light, darkness, and all kinds of forms. When these three conditions are united, one experiences “seeing awareness.”

Because “seeing awareness” comes from these three parts, it is not any one of them but exists only when this combination is present. This awareness can be compared to fire, which arises from heat, oxygen, and wood. When these three things mix, the fire appears but fire clearly is not any one of these things by itself.

This is an important distinction to make because many students of Buddhism do not understand the difference between the sight awareness and the ability to see.

Let us continue investigating this issue by explaining why consciousness has no form. Looking at the example of Eye Consciousness we see that eye consciousness can be aware of any color or any form, which includes seeing through empty space. But can eye consciousness see itself? No. The reason why it cannot see itself is because the ability to see itself has no form.

It is also important for us to make it clear why we can be aware of empty space. In Buddhism even empty space has an existing form. If something has no form, it cannot be perceived. Thus all that can be perceived — even something we commonly consider “empty” or “formless” — must actually have a form.

The mysterious trick of life is that the essence of our consciousness–which is our awareness ability and constitutes our True Self—has

• –  No movement. Because it has no speed to move it is not “illusion being” (the appearance of all life forms).
• –  No awareness. So there is no feeling, thinking, or acting.

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• –  No brightness or darkness. So are no forms to see.
• –  No sound or silence. Therefore there is no way to hear.
• –  No smell or breathing. So there is no scent or breath movement.
• –  No taste. Therefore there is no sense of flavor.
• –  No touch or sense of separation. Since it doesn’t move it has no form.
• –  No thinking or thoughts. Like a white piece of paper without any writing on it,the ability to think remains though there are no thoughts.
  Consciousness is awareness ability. It is not the six senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and brain) nor their sense boundaries (brightness/darkness, sound/silence, openness/blockades, taste/lack of taste, contact/separation, and awareness/lack of awareness) or the result of our awareness.One analogy for consciousness is that of a chalkboard. Any words or colors can be written on a chalkboard. That is because a chalkboard has the ability to be written on. The words or colors written on the chalkboard come from a combination of the chalkboard, the chalk and the person who does the writing. But these three are not the chalkboard. (Many people make the mistake of thinking that consciousness is not only the awareness ability but also the sense and what is sensed. This leads to the belief in the Individual I, which they see as being constituted of these awareness’ and thoughts.) The chalkboard can become so filled with writing that we can make no sense of anything written on it. But the chalkboard also has the ability to be cleaned off and to receive new writing. Our awareness ability (consciousness) works similarly. It can become cluttered so that no sense can be made what it holds, but it too has to stay empty to receive new awareness.Another example which can help us understands more precisely, why consciousness (the awareness ability) is not the awareness (the result of what we are aware of).

  The ability of water to make waves is not the actual wave itself. The wave appears and disappears, but the ability of water to make waves remains. The wave is the result of the

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ability of the water to make waves. The same is true of our awareness. All of our awareness comes from our ability to feel and the things that exist (which are constantly changing as illusion being) to be felt.

Here is a simple diagram to illustrate the relationship between consciousness, illusion being, and emptiness.

EMPTINESS

The true essence of Dharma
The essence of consciousness and all life forms Or the incredible eternal force

CONSCIOUSNESS

The ability to feel and to be aware

The Four Developments(Receiving,
Thinking, Acting Awareness)
The Six Functions of Consciousness(Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body, and Mind Consciousness)

ILLUSION BEING

The appearance of all life form (space & time)
Everything we can be aware of as body and surroundings

The Four Pure Qualities Wind, Fire, Water, Earth within pure moving empty space