The Meaning of "Departing Last and Arriving First as the Sovereign"

The consciousness that comes last and leaves first refers to Tathāgatagarbha, and it is also Tathāgatagarbha that acts as the master. "Leaving" occurs when the five aggregates cease: Tathāgatagarbha is the last to abandon the physical body. Once it no longer personally sustains the physical body, the body becomes a corpse. Simultaneously, Tathāgatagarbha, together with the Tathāgatagarbha of other sentient beings, jointly sustains the corpse, causing it to undergo the changes of birth, abiding, alteration, and extinction, until it completely vanishes without remainder after a certain period. At the moment of death, the five sense consciousnesses cease first, followed by the gradual cessation of the mental consciousness. When the manas perceives no hope for survival, it also departs immediately; it does not perish. At the same time, Tathāgatagarbha cannot sustain the body alone and thus also leaves the physical body. This "leaving" is an expedient expression; there is no more precise term, and it must be stated this way.

"Coming" refers to the initial taking of rebirth. When sentient beings in the intermediate state (antarābhava) enter the womb, it is Tathāgatagarbha that enters the fertilized egg, drawn in by the manas. The manas also enters. This establishes the initial name-and-form (nāmarūpa) of the five aggregates. When name and form are complete with the five aggregates, birth occurs, and an infant is born. If Tathāgatagarbha does not enter, the fertilized egg cannot develop; there would be no name-and-form, no five-aggregate body, and no sentient being. The terms "entering" and "coming" used here are also expedient expressions employed for the sake of conveying meaning conveniently; there are no more suitable words to express their intent.

Tathāgatagarbha is the master of sentient beings. Life after life, it creates the five-aggregate bodies of sentient beings, sustains their five-aggregate bodies, records and stores their physical, verbal, and mental actions, outputs karmic seeds, and realizes the karmic causes and effects of sentient beings. Tathāgatagarbha is the subjective consciousness that causes sentient beings to cycle through the Three Realms and Six Destinies (saṃsāra), and it is also the subjective consciousness that enables sentient beings to transcend the cycle and accomplish the Buddha Way.