Source: This sentence comes from the Diamond Sutra.
Interpretation: All phenomena and laws of the birth and death of karma, just like dreams, are empty and false in dreams, just like hallucinations. In fact, it is the technique that acts on the display, like bubbles, without self-nature, without eternal entities, like reflections in water, visible and tangible, like morning dew, rising and dissipating, gathering at sunset, and like lightning, suddenly extinguished, and life and death are abnormal.
Original explanation:
(1) There are 9 metaphors in the original text, but there are only 6 metaphors in Kumarajiva's Diamond Sutra. The nine metaphors are stars, clouds, light, illusion, dew, bubbles, dreams, electricity and clouds.
(2) The first three metaphors here are from the perspective of karma, the middle three metaphors are the fruits of karma, and the last three metaphors are from the perspective of the time of the third world.
(3) Stars represent ordinary people whose wisdom is as weak as starlight, and cannot shine with the sun and the moon; Clouds represent that ordinary people will see empty flowers out of thin air, because I hold them like I have a sick eye; Lights represent ordinary people who are constantly reincarnated because of greed, just like adding oil to a lamp and keeping it on all the time. Illusion means that the world of karma is illusory, dew means that the body of karma is like dew, and bubble means that karma is like a bubble. Dreams refer to past lives like dreams, electricity refers to this life like electricity, clouds refer to dark clouds, and rain is hidden. It means that life in the future is like a dark cloud, and there is a career.