The Profound Yogācāra Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (85)

The term Tathāgata explicitly refers to the Buddha of the five-aggregate body, and implicitly refers to the Dharmakāya Buddha (dharma-kāya-buddha). The Dharmakāya Buddha is formless and without marks; it is the Buddha's undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna) and the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings. After attaining buddhahood, the Buddha's seven consciousnesses and the Dharmakāya's undefiled consciousness have similar nature-virtues: the seven consciousnesses have completely accomplished the transformation of the basis as tathāgatagarbha into the undefiled consciousness, having extinguished all ignorance, so their mind-nature is very close to suchness (tathatā). Their mental factors are identical: the five universal mental factors, the five object-specific mental factors, and the eleven wholesome mental factors—all eight consciousnesses possess twenty-one mental factors.

The "Tathāgata" as the Dharmakāya Buddha refers to the true mind of suchness, the tathāgatagarbha. "True speech" is speech of correct truth. It is speech of direct perception/valid direct cognition, meaning that the tathāgatagarbha can manifest realms of direct perception, without inference or erroneous cognition/non-valid cognition. Everything accords with reality and facts, and also accords with sentient beings' karmic seeds, always faithfully presenting the original appearance of sentient beings' karmic actions.

"Real speech" is speech of truthfulness. When sentient beings create karma—whether wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral/indeterminate (avyākṛta)—the tathāgatagarbha faithfully records, stores, and outputs it, faithfully actualizing the karmic results of sentient beings. It never alters or omits sentient beings' karmic actions, karmic seeds, or karmic retribution: whatever karma it is, that karma is recorded; whatever retribution it is, that retribution is actualized.

"Such speech" refers, on the one hand, to truthful speech, speech of reality; on the other hand, it refers to the immovable suchness of the mind-substance—unmoved in mind, without mental activity. When the tathāgatagarbha transforms and creates all dharmas, its inner nature remains in suchness, immovable, without stirring thoughts or giving rise to mental activity. There are no emotions, no sentiments—completely neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā).

"One who does not deceive": deception means to delude, cheat, and defraud. The tathāgatagarbha has never deceived sentient beings, has never cheated sentient beings. But sentient beings' six consciousnesses always engage in unwholesome verbal karma, deceiving with speech, not speaking true words, not speaking words of reality—false speech, divisive speech, frivolous speech, and harsh speech without end. They frequently feint one way while striking another, point at the mulberry to curse the locust, conceal the truth of facts, fabricate lies, habitually speak untruthful and false words, tell lies, cover up faults, envy the talented and resent the capable—committing every kind of verbal karma.

"One who does not speak divergently": divergence means variation, difference, alteration, something else, otherness. Divergent speech is saying one thing to one's face and another behind one's back—saying one thing to person A and another to person B, or saying one thing at one time and changing to something else at another time; these are two kinds of speech, or speaking and then changing one's word, not meaning what one says. These mental activities are the mental activities of the six consciousnesses; the six consciousnesses create unwholesome verbal karma, lacking verbal virtue—this is exactly how it is. Moreover, they do not know remorse or regret, having no repentance and no shame, which is an afflictive bad habit. But the tathāgatagarbha never speaks two kinds of speech, never speaks divergent words, never flips back and forth, nor turns things topsy-turvy. He will not store sentient beings' wholesome karmic seeds yet output unwholesome karmic seeds, making sentient beings suffer unwholesome retribution; conversely, He will not store unwholesome karmic seeds yet output wholesome karmic seeds, making sentient beings enjoy wholesome retribution. He is not one thing to one's face and another behind one's back; there is no variation whatsoever, and He is never unfaithful to karmic seeds and cause and effect.

And the Sambhogakāya Buddha (saṃbhoga-kāya-buddha), the Nirmāṇakāya (nirmāṇakāya) with five-aggregate bodies, are the same as the Dharmakāya Buddha: forever speakers of true words, forever speakers of real words, forever speakers of such words, forever non-deceivers, forever non-speakers of divergent words. Because the Buddha's seven consciousnesses have extinguished all ignorance, afflictions, and afflictive habits, and have completely accomplished the transformation of consciousness into wisdom, their virtue is incomparable and unsurpassed; their verbal karma is perfect and flawless, without a single blemish, harmonious and unobstructed, causing all sentient beings throughout the worlds of the ten directions to admire and venerate them beyond measure.