The Relationship Between Karmic Seeds and Habitual Tendencies

The relationship between karmic seeds and habitual tendencies is profoundly abstruse, belonging to the domain of Vijñapti-mātratā and the wisdom of seeds. Habitual tendencies are formed when long-practiced dharma gains momentum, seeking to dominate body, speech, and mind, thereby creating karmic actions, which are then stored as seeds. This deepens and intensifies the karmic seeds, leading to even stronger habitual tendencies in the future.

Habitual tendencies also originate from karmic seeds. Since they form through prolonged habituation, karmic seeds must necessarily exist. Habitual tendencies manifest through the manas (mind-root). The manas governs the bodily, verbal, and mental activities of the six consciousnesses. After these actions are created, they are stored as karmic seeds, which manifest in future lives; this is called habitual tendencies. Karmic seeds are formed through karmic actions governed by the manas. The manas fully corresponds to the karmic seeds: as the manas is, so are the karmic seeds; as the karmic seeds are, so the manas manifests corresponding karmic actions.

How then can one leave behind karmic seeds of non-self? How can one cultivate to form habitual tendencies of non-self? If one wishes to be born in future lives already perceiving the emptiness of the five aggregates and the worldly realm, how should one practice in this present life?

When Subhūti was in his mother’s womb, he knew the emptiness and quiescence of the world. How profound must this habitual tendency have been? His realization of emptiness through cultivation spans immeasurable kalpas and beyond. The manas’s habitual tendency toward emptiness has absolutely no relation to the conscious mind’s conditioning. Before consciousness even arose, the manas was emptiness. How utterly liberating and effortless must such emptiness be?

Theoretical emptiness becomes non-emptiness at the time of death; after death, it is even less empty; in future lives, it becomes utterly impossible to be empty. Thus, theoretically abiding in concepts like "like a dream, like an illusion" or "the true suchness of Dharma-nature" is merely self-deception, utterly useless when put to the test. When the moment arrives, one acts as one always would; at life’s end, one dies as one must—this does not resolve the problem of birth and death. Such theoretical understanding reveals its true nature when confronted with actual events; the original form is fully exposed, hence it is said to be useless.

When the manas attains realization, forming karmic seeds, one reaps the benefit life after life. When events occur, one does not revert to the original state; at the time of rebirth, one is not deluded. If one remains undeluded in the womb, undeluded at birth, and undeluded throughout growth, then one is constantly liberated.