Tathāgatagarbha: Storing and Dispensing Karmic Seeds and the Actualization of Karmic Fruits

The Tathāgatagarbha directly actualizes the karmic retribution of sentient beings, without the necessity of passing through the mental factors of the manas. The recompense of cause and effect is not governed by the seventh consciousness. The Tathāgatagarbha directly causes the physical body to grow, mature, and age, not governed by the seventh consciousness. The Tathāgatagarbha directly facilitates the birth, cessation, transformation, and alteration of the physical body, as well as changes in the living environment and karmic conditions, not governed by the seventh consciousness.

The karmic actions performed by sentient beings in this present life are all stored by the Tathāgatagarbha, including every detail of body, speech, and mind, leaving nothing out. All are recorded and stored in the form of karmic seeds. When conditions ripen in future lives, the Tathāgatagarbha outputs these karmic seeds, and sentient beings must live and receive retribution according to their own karmic seeds.

These karmic seeds are all associated with the manas, because the manas exists continuously, life after life, without cessation, carrying these karmic seeds into future lives until the retribution is exhausted and the karmic seeds disappear. The six consciousnesses, however, are newly born in each life and do not carry karmic seeds, yet they are influenced by the manas and manifest various habitual tendencies and afflictions.