Tathāgatagarbha and the Seven Consciousnesses: Differential Content and Modes of Cognition

The Tathāgatagarbha and the seven consciousnesses both possess the nature of discernment, but the content and manner of their discernment are entirely different. The Tathāgatagarbha cannot discern the specific content of the six dusts (objects of sense) like the seven consciousnesses do; it does not know what the six dusts are. However, it is aware of the present state of the six dusts and the trends of their development and change. The Tathāgatagarbha can discern all dharmas, but it does not know their specific content and states. This specific content is what the seven consciousnesses discern.

For example, clothing can be discerned by humans and also by a washing machine, but the content discerned by these two is completely different. The washing machine, having washed so many clothes, still does not know what it has done, nor does it know that there is a "self" – it is entirely without self-awareness. The Tathāgatagarbha possesses a similar kind of knowing and unknowing.

The washing machine operates strictly according to its pre-designed program; it makes no choices of its own. Similarly, the Tathāgatagarbha operates according to inherent programs and rules. What exactly these rules are, the Tathāgatagarbha does not know, just as the washing machine does not know what its own operating programs and rules are. Yet both can perform their essential functions on time, and after completing their tasks, neither knows what it has done. Without joy or sorrow, and without feeling hardship, they consequently have no afflictions of greed, hatred, or delusion. This is the state of no-self and no-mind.