Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (59)

The self-nature of the eye faculty is utterly unattainable

When the earth element is pure, the eye base constituted from it is pure, because when the raw materials are pure, the material form composed from them is pure. If the water, fire, and wind elements are all pure, the eye faculty constituted from them is pure, because when the raw materials are pure, the material form composed from them is pure. Externally, it appears that an eye faculty of material form has come into existence, with the appearance of material form; but material form is so illusory and unreal—the seeds of the four great elements flow out bit by bit, and the eye faculty is formed bit by bit, established out of nothing whatsoever; moreover, its raw materials are the formless and unmarked seeds of emptiness (śūnyatā), and these seeds flow out from the tathāgatagarbha. Thus the substance of the eye faculty is precisely the tathāgatagarbha, belonging entirely to the tathāgatagarbha; therefore the self-nature of the eye faculty is utterly unattainable.

Because the tathāgatagarbha is intrinsically pure, neither arising nor ceasing, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither coming nor going, the seeds of the four great elements that it outputs are pure, and the self-nature of the eye faculty constituted from them is likewise pure, neither arising nor ceasing, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither coming nor going, without any self-mastery, without any capacity for volitional action—it is entirely an attribute of the tathāgatagarbha, and there is not the slightest dharma of an eye faculty to be obtained.