The Essence of the Heart Sutra
Section Six: The True Mind Is Empty and Quiescent, Without Wisdom and Without Attainment
Sutra text: 【（如来藏）无智亦无得。】Here, "wisdom" refers to worldly wisdom and the wisdom of studying and cultivating supramundane dharmas; it is possessed by the seven consciousnesses, being the seven consciousnesses' cognition and understanding of worldly and supramundane dharmas, the discriminating wisdom regarding the realms of the six sense objects, and the wisdom that the seven consciousnesses obtain through cultivation and learning—it does not refer to the inherent awareness wisdom (本觉智慧) of the tathāgatagarbha.
The tathāgatagarbha does not have this kind of worldly wisdom, because He does not face the six sense objects and does not recognize the six sense objects; He was never in the mundane world to begin with, and has always been on the other shore. The wisdom of the seven consciousnesses is subject to arising and ceasing, vastly different from the tathāgatagarbha's inherently non-arising, non-ceasing wisdom. When we engage in invention, creation, and research within worldly dharmas, the tathāgatagarbha does not understand these things; He has never deigned to pay them the slightest attention. When our five aggregates of body and mind learn crafts and skills, the tathāgatagarbha neither understands nor learns them. When our mind consciousness, the perceiving mind, takes university courses or graduate courses, the tathāgatagarbha neither learns nor understands them; He possesses none of the wisdom of worldly dharmas at all.
The perceiving mind consciousness has this kind of wisdom: through reading and study, one can advance to a postdoctoral level; through research, invention, and creation, one can build airplanes and rockets—this mind is indeed sometimes clever and full of intelligence. The mind consciousness can also study the Buddhadharma, realize the mind and see its nature, and attain the great wisdom of no-self. The tathāgatagarbha is not interested in these wisdoms and does not possess them, yet all of the mind consciousness's worldly wisdom comes from the support of the tathāgatagarbha. The great wisdom that the tathāgatagarbha possesses is not wisdom of a worldly kind; His realm of wisdom is inherent, not acquired through study. For example, He transmits the four great elements—the seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind—creating the physical body, creating mountains, rivers, and the great earth, flowers, grass, and trees, creating the universe and the starry sky. He has these wisdoms; He knows when, where, and what kind of things to manifest and bring forth—whether mountain ranges and rivers, or gold, silver, and iron ore—His wisdom lies in this. He also knows your thoughts, and knowing them, He cooperates with you; whether you are indulging in wandering thoughts or cultivating meditative concentration, He can cooperate with you. His wisdom is different from that of the perceiving mind consciousness and is inconceivable. Precisely because the tathāgatagarbha's inherent awareness wisdom is fundamentally different from the wisdom of our five aggregates and consciousness mind, if you search for the tathāgatagarbha according to worldly standards of wisdom, you will be unable to find Him.
Because our five aggregates of body and mind suffer the misery of birth-and-death in saṃsāra, we must cultivate the Small Vehicle's path of liberation and the Great Vehicle's path to buddhahood. Through cultivation and study, our mind consciousness gains the liberating wisdom of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path, and even the general-characteristic wisdom and specific-characteristic wisdom of prajñā, and even the wisdom of the varieties of paths—the Great Vehicle wisdom of liberation. But the tathāgatagarbha neither cultivates nor learns any of these wisdoms; He does not correspond to any wisdom—worldly, supramundane, or transcending both the worldly and the supramundane. He does not need to cultivate the wisdom of liberation, for He is Himself liberated; all wisdom of liberation exists by virtue of Him, and He Himself has no bondage whatsoever.
The tathāgatagarbha also has no attainment; toward all dharmas He attains nothing, because He is perfectly endowed with all dharmas and lacks nothing. It is because the five aggregates of body and mind crave worldly dharmas that they obtain various forms of fame and gain; it is by pursuing liberation that they obtain the wisdom of the Two Vehicles' bodhi; it is by studying the Mahāyāna Buddhadharma that they obtain the karmic rewards of the bodhisattva stages and ultimately the stage of buddhahood. It is the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses that "attain," but in fact the five aggregates attain nothing at all; so-called attainment is merely a false, illusory appearance, like an illusory game with no substance. "Attainment" is only a name and concept, without any reality.
Toward everything in worldly and supramundane dharmas, the tathāgatagarbha neither grasps nor attains; when sentient beings attain buddhahood, He is still Himself. He is in fact the true Buddha, and this Buddha is not cultivated into being; if He were attained through cultivation, He would be a dharma of attainment, a dharma of arising and ceasing. For example, in studying and practicing Buddhism and gaining wisdom and liberation, it is the five aggregates of body and mind that gain wisdom and liberation, which has nothing to do with the tathāgatagarbha; He Himself has no bondage, being both wise and liberated. He does not even relish the fruition of buddhahood; toward everything in worldly and supramundane dharmas, He neither grasps nor attains. The tathāgatagarbha also does not attain the fruition of buddhahood; if He attained the fruition of buddhahood, then He would not be the originally existing Buddha but a Buddha cultivated later on, which would contradict the Buddha's intent.
The five aggregates may possess all worldly dharmas, yet neither the five aggregates themselves nor the dharmas they possess have any self-nature; all are empty, illusory, and false, like flowers reflected in a mirror or the moon in water. The "existence" of the five aggregates is completely different from the "existence" of the tathāgatagarbha. Is the tathāgatagarbha Himself empty or existent? He is both empty and existent, neither empty nor existent—emptiness and existence are non-dual in Him. Say He is empty: He has neither this nor that, and not even a single dharma of the threefold world exists in Him. Say He is existent: He contains and stores the seeds of all dharmas and can transform and bring forth the myriad dharmas, with functions and virtues that are measureless, boundless, and inconceivable.
The tathāgatagarbha attains none of all dharmas, yet He can, in accordance with various conditions, transform or manifest these dharmas. If the conditions are not complete, or if the corresponding conditions cease, the tathāgatagarbha will not give birth to or manifest any dharmas. For example, when an arhat enters nirvāṇa without remainder and transcends the threefold world, having severed all conditions with the world of the threefold realm, then the arhat's tathāgatagarbha no longer transforms or manifests any dharmas, and He abides by Himself in a realm of complete quiescence and extinction.
What has been said above is the nature of the tathāgatagarbha's being without wisdom and without attainment.
