The Buddhist View of Causes and Conditions Differs from That of Non-Buddhist Paths

Question: All dharmas arise from the conjunction of causes and conditions—doesn't this contradict the statement in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, "本非因缘，非自然性。"? If there is no contradiction, what does each of these two statements express?

Answer: The cause of all dharmas is the tathāgatagarbha, while the conditions are all the conditions that give rise to a particular dharma. The World-Honored One said: 有因有缘，世间集，有因有缘世间灭。In the non-Buddhist view of causes and conditions, the "cause" therein does not refer to the tathāgatagarbha; their two words, "cause and condition," taken together, both refer to conditions. Therefore, in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra the Buddha denied that all dharmas are born of causes and conditions, and instead said that they are all the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. The direct producer of all dharmas is the tathāgatagarbha; all dharmas come from the tathāgatagarbha, being directly brought forth by the four great seeds or the seven great seeds delivered by the tathāgatagarbha.

Take the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination, which consists of twelve chains: in actuality, it is not that the preceding link gives birth to the following link; rather, all dharmas are produced by the tathāgatagarbha, and no other dharma can give rise to all dharmas. Therefore, if one expounds the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination apart from the tathāgatagarbha, that is a non-Buddhist teaching. The pratyekabuddhas realized the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination without ever departing from the tathāgatagarbha; when they traced backward through the links of dependent origination, they deduced that the tathāgatagarbha is the source of life.

In the third scroll of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One taught that all dharmas are "本非因缘，非自然性", meaning that all the myriad dharmas of the world are not produced by various conditions, nor do they exist naturally and spontaneously; rather, they arise from within the tathāgatagarbha, are intrinsically the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, and are all generated by the functioning of the tathāgatagarbha. Thus, upon all the myriad dharmas one can see one's own Buddha-nature, that is, the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha is a tightly woven great net that nets all the myriad dharmas within it; all dharmas are entirely His subjects. After the sentence "本非因缘，非自然性。", the words "本如来藏性" are omitted, and that is why many sentient beings find it very difficult to understand the true meaning of this sentence.