Why There Are Truly No Sentient Beings to Attain Parinirvana

There truly exists no sentient being to be delivered to nirvana. The meaning of this statement is that there is no actual perception of sentient beings to be attained, nor any substantial aspect of nirvana to be grasped. All are illusory, false appearances manifested by the Tathagatagarbha; their essential nature is the intrinsic quality of the Tathagatagarbha itself. Superficially, the aggregates of these sentient beings appear to exist, but in essence, the five aggregates of sentient beings are all illusory appearances. They are like puppets, robots, or electric dolls—none possess genuine existence as actual puppets, robots, or electric dolls.

All activities of such robots are manipulated by humans or follow pre-designed programs. What is truly active is not the puppet, not the robot, not the electric doll. Just as a bunch of plastic flowers contains no real flowers but is merely a collection of plastic, and similarly, there is no actual robot but merely a heap of metal, by the same token, there are no sentient beings in the true sense. All are the Tathagatagarbha. Therefore, when a bodhisattva delivers sentient beings into nirvana without remainder, in reality, no individual has been delivered. For fundamentally, there is no real person, nor does any aspect of deliverance exist. All are illusory appearances of the Tathagatagarbha, representing interactions between the Tathagatagarbha and itself.