V OLUME five of Great Concentration and Insight states: “Life at each moment1 is endowed with the Ten Worlds. At the same time, each of the Ten Worlds is endowed with all Ten Worlds, so that an entity of life actually possesses one hundred worlds. Each of these worlds in turn possesses thirty realms,2 which means that in the one hundred worlds there are three thousand realms. The three thousand realms of existence are all possessed by life in a single moment. If there is no life, that is the end of the matter. But if there is the slightest bit of life, it contains all the three thousand realms. . . . This is what we mean when we speak of the ‘region of the unfathomable.’ ”
Note: “[Three thousand] realms” might also read “[three thousand] factors,” but the number is the same. The only difference lies in the method of expansion. Another copy of Great Concentration and Insight states, “Each world is endowed with the three realms of existence.”3
Question: Is the principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life explained in The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra? Answer: Miao-lo states that it is not. Question: Then is it explained in
The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra? Answer: Miao-lo states that it is not. Question: What are his exact words? Answer: He says, “None of them reveal that a single moment of life contains the three thousand realms.”4
Question: Is this principle mentioned in any of the first four volumes of Great Concentration and Insight?
Answer: No, it is not. Question: What proof is there of this?
Answer: Miao-lo says, “When at last he revealed the method of meditation in Great Concentration and Insight, he at the same time employed the ‘three thousand realms’ as a way to understand.”5
Question: Volume two of Profound Meaning states, “Each of the Ten Worlds contains the other nine, and in those one hundred worlds are one thousand factors.” Volume one of Words and Phrases states, “Each sense field6 is endowed with the Ten Worlds, each of which again is endowed with all of the ten within itself. Since each of those hundred worlds is endowed with the ten factors, the total becomes one thousand.” The Profound Meaning of the “Perceiver of the World’s Sounds” Chapter7 comments, “The Ten Worlds are all after the Thus Come One’s Passing Nichiren, the shramana of Japan
