Dharmas of Arising and Ceasing and the Dharma of Non-Arising

Verse by Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna:诸法不自生，亦不从他生，不共不无因，是故知无生。

The meaning of this passage by Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna is that dharmas do not give birth to themselves, nor are they born from other things. That is to say, one thing does not give birth to another thing; dharmas are also not produced by the mutual combination of themselves and other conditions, nor are they born without a cause for their birth. The meaning of the last line is that the birth of dharmas has a cause; they are not born causelessly.

Then what is the cause? The fundamental cause is the mind of ultimate reality (dharmatā-citta), the tathāgatagarbha. All dharmas come from the mind-substance of the tathāgatagarbha that stores seeds; they are not created by some deity or by God. The true cause of all dharmas is the tathāgatagarbha, and the source is the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, all dharmas are subject to birth, and whatever is born is subject to cessation. Although they are born, there is no real birth; they are all illusory, conjured up by delusion — born yet not born, merely false appearances.

The only dharma that is truly unborn is the tathāgatagarbha. He was not born; He has existed from the very beginning. He is without beginning, and therefore also without end. What has a beginning has an end; only what is without beginning is without end.