The True Meaning of All Dharmas Being Pure in the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment

The Complete Enlightenment Sūtra says that all dharmas are pure. Why? Evil dharmas, wholesome dharmas, the hells, the heavenly palaces—all dharmas of the world are pure. Why? Slandering the Buddha and destroying the Dharma is also extremely pure; slandering the Saṅgha and destroying stupas and monasteries is also extremely pure; and of course, studying Buddhism and cultivating the Path, the bodhisattvas' six perfections, are even more pure. Why? Because all dharmas are the wondrous functions of the tathāgatagarbha, empty in their very essence; even if not empty, they are still pure. For example, consider a machine designed by humans through programming to slaughter sentient beings—its actions carry no defilement, because it has no mind or intention to create the karma of killing, nor any autonomy of its own; therefore it does not create the karma of killing. Its actions belong to the programming, and belong to the will of the designer.

When one realizes the emptiness of all dharmas, the karma of the hells is also empty, and one need not fall into the hells. For example, a magician conjures up men and women; these men and women, though performing various wholesome and unwholesome deeds, incur no karmic retribution. Because all karma is illusory and conjured, it has no substance; if there were any substance, it would all be the doing of the magician.

Suppose the magician manifests two people, one of whom kills the other; yet there is no killer, and there is no one killed, and the karma of killing among them is also illusory and conjured. The master of the illusion is the magician, yet the magician does not receive retribution—there truly is no act of killing, no creator of karma, and no receiver of retribution. All dharmas are illusory and conjured; where is there anything real? To say that anything is real is delusion and confusion. Therefore we need not, upon waking from a dream, contemplate that the dream is a dream; even when awake, it is still a dream, just like observing a dream within a dream—all is dream. The observer is also a dream, and observing is also a dream! All dharmas are dream.