Diamond Sutra: The Profound Meaning of Consciousness-Only (109)

Why is it said that the Tathāgata knows all the various minds of sentient beings? Here, "Tathāgata" refers to two things: one is the Tathāgata with a five-aggregate body, including the Sambhogakāya Buddha and the Nirmāṇakāya Buddha; the other is the Dharmakāya Buddha (dharma-kāya-buddha), the Tathāgata without a five-aggregate body. The Nirmāṇakāya Buddha, through cultivation over three countless great kalpas, has attained omniscience/wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā), with perfect and unobstructed powers of supernatural abilities. His wisdom can thoroughly see all the mental activities of the immeasurable and boundless sentient beings in the worlds of the ten directions, knowing all sentient beings' thoughts at a single moment. Wherever sentient beings' karmic conditions ripen, He will manifest there, proclaiming the Dharma teachings to liberate sentient beings. As for the other, the Dharmakāya Buddha Tathāgata, He can know the mental activities of sentient beings—during the process of the manifest functioning of the seven consciousnesses, the tathāgatagarbha knows these mental activities, and only then can it cooperate with the seven consciousnesses to arise and manifest, continuing to function. Therefore, "the various minds of sentient beings" refers to the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses, not to the vajra mind (vajra-citta), the tathāgatagarbha, because the tathāgatagarbha is only one kind, without any variety.

The tathāgatagarbha knows the mental activities of sentient beings, primarily by knowing the mental activities of the seventh consciousness, the manas. Whatever the six consciousnesses perceive and contemplate in the process of perceiving the myriad dharmas of the six sense objects must all be transmitted to the manas. Based on this, the manas gives rise to mental factors such as attention (manaskāra), and then performs its own deliberation (manasikāra/manana) and decision-making. The tathāgatagarbha will then perceive the manas's attention and deliberation mental factor. All of the manas's decisions and intentions can be known by the tathāgatagarbha, and it will accordingly comply with the manas's decisions, giving rise to the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses. Therefore, when the tathāgatagarbha knows the mental activities of the manas, it can make the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses manifest according to the manas's decisions. What the manas deliberates upon is precisely what the six consciousnesses perceive, so when the tathāgatagarbha perceives the mental activities of the manas, it is equivalent to knowing the mental activities of the six consciousnesses. The tathāgatagarbha also perceives sentient beings' karmic seeds; after perceiving them, it outputs the karmic seeds, and thus knows what mental activities sentient beings will manifest.

As for these seven consciousnesses, in reality there are no seven consciousnesses; on the surface they appear to exist, but this existence is false existence—sentient beings falsely see and falsely know them; in actuality, they are all the tathāgatagarbha mind. The seven consciousnesses formed by the tathāgatagarbha transmitting forth consciousness seeds are, in essence, still the tathāgatagarbha mind. Sentient beings falsely perceive the existence of seven consciousnesses, but in essence it is the tathāgatagarbha. It is all the tathāgatagarbha itself playing within the illusory realms it has manifested. Therefore, the Tathāgata said that all these minds are not minds. Here, "not minds" does not refer to the tathāgatagarbha; it refers to the seven consciousnesses, meaning that there is no truly real deluded mind of seven consciousnesses—all is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, provisionally named "various minds," provisionally named "seven consciousnesses."

Later, the three minds were additionally mentioned, consistent with what came before—all referring to the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses. The deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses is unobtainable, because none of them are real dharmas; they are illusory, arising and ceasing, and therefore it is said they are unobtainable. The three minds of past, future, and present mainly refer to the six consciousnesses, the mind with the mind consciousness as the primary; the manas, however, has no distinction of past, future, and present. These minds cannot be grasped or retained; they arise and cease in an instant, thought after thought without pausing—hence it is said these minds are unobtainable, and indeed they truly cannot be obtained.