The Intrinsic Nature of Tathāgatagarbha

The tathāgatagarbha is not something assembled; He is not a composite. Whatever is composite is born and formed later, and is subject to arising and ceasing. But the tathāgatagarbha exists from the very beginning, neither arising nor ceasing. No dharma can be assembled into the tathāgatagarbha; rather, it is the tathāgatagarbha that gives birth to all dharmas. The tathāgatagarbha is not in empty space, yet He is never separate from the five aggregates; in all the operations of the five aggregates, the tathāgatagarbha is there cooperating. The tathāgatagarbha gives birth to the five aggregates by transmitting the seeds of the seven great elements, and the body of the five aggregates is formed from the seeds of the six great elements transmitted by the tathāgatagarbha.

When the tathāgatagarbha gives birth to the five aggregates and the eighteen dhātus, He directly transmits seeds to transform and create them. And after the transformation, when the tathāgatagarbha manifests the five aggregates, the twelve āyatanas, the eighteen dhātus, and the myriad dharmas, He does so on the basis of the external six sense-objects that have already been transformed and created, once again using the five sense faculties to take in the object-aspects of the six sense-objects and transform and create the inner six sense-objects; only in this way can we discern the realms of the six sense-objects. That is to say, the inner six sense-object aspects that we perceive are the tathāgatagarbha, through the five sense faculties and on the basis of the external object-aspects, transforming and creating the external object-aspects once again—this is the principle by which the six sense-objects manifest in the mind.

The tathāgatagarbha is boundless externally; He does not envelop the body, and internally He does not overlap with the body. Being without form or appearance, He cannot overlap with a body that has form and appearance, much less envelop the body. Because the tathāgatagarbha has no inside or outside, just as empty space has no inside or outside. The tathāgatagarbha is not a worldly dharma; we cannot view or understand Him according to the concepts of worldly dharmas. In this way, when we seek Him, we will not add further obstructions.