Analyzing the Dharmas Arising from Causes and Conditions through the Sound of a Drum

I hold drumsticks in my hand and strike the drum, and the sound of "boom boom boom" comes out. Does this drum sound come out of my hand, out of the drum, or out of empty space? When I stop striking the drum, the sound disappears—where has the drum sound gone? Where did this drum sound originally exist?

All dharmas arise due to various causes and conditions. That drum sound, as well as all dharmas, has no place of arising when it arises, and no place of ceasing when it ceases; it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere—all of it is false and illusory. Because all dharmas are produced by causes and conditions, whatever is produced is empty and illusory.

The Buddha said: 有因有缘世间集，有因有缘世间灭。These dharmas are spoken from the perspective of the Small Vehicle teachings. If spoken from the perspective of the Great Vehicle, all dharmas have a source of origin; nothing surpasses the source of all things. What is so good about it? All dharmas are produced by the tathāgatagarbha; there is not a single dharma that can escape from beyond the tathāgatagarbha—none of them falls outside the palm of the Tathāgata's hand.

The drum, the drumsticks, and the drum sound are all produced by the tathāgatagarbha, which, in accordance with various conditions, transmits the seeds of the four great elements. Therefore this is called a dharma produced by causes and conditions; dharmas produced by causes and conditions, the Buddha said, are precisely emptiness. All dharmas are produced by one's own mind, and this mind is the tathāgatagarbha, which is also the Ālayavijñāna. However, the tathāgatagarbha alone cannot produce any dharma; there must also be the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses and karmic seeds, with the true and the deluded operating in conjunction, before dharmas can be produced. Therefore, on every single dharma there is the operation of both the true mind and the deluded mind. On all the dharmas of the five aggregates, if one excludes the deluded mind, the deluded marks, and the deluded realms, what remains—that unmoving mind—is the true dharma, the tathāgatagarbha.