Part 3 - The phenomenal world is like illusion

Thus, when its reflection appears to arise in a mirror:

Though the image appears, no face is really there.
Yet nothing goes into the mirror that is other than the face.
But though it does not exist, the appearance of two is there.
Know that all the various dharmas are like that.

Though a reflected face does not go into a mirror, it does appear there. From the time it appears, no dharma other than a face exists there. Just so, from the very time that all the dharmas of the phenomenal world appear to the mind, they are established neither as mind nor something other than mind. They are like the eight examples of illusion. The Mula-madhyamaka-karikas says:

Like dream, like illusion,
Like a castle of the gandharvas,
Like that is birth, and like that is duration.
Like that too is destruction taught to be.

The Samadhiraja Sutra says:

Like the moon that shines in a cloudless sky,
Though a clear, still lake shows its reflection,
The moon itself does not go from sky to water.
All dharmas should be known to be like that.

Just as, for people by a rocky mountain,
By their singing, talking, weeping, and laughing,
Depending on conditions, echoes rise,
But the melody never goes beyond its sounds,

All dharmas should be known to be like that. There and so forth it is taught.