Tathāgatagarbha Is Both Self and Not-Self

The tathāgatagarbha is both self and not-self; this principle is profound and most profound. The five aggregates are without self, and all dharmas born from the tathāgatagarbha are without self, because they are all subject to arising and ceasing, empty, impermanent, suffering, not to be grasped, impossible to grasp, and cannot be held onto. Yet the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings is not suffering, empty, impermanent, or subject to change; within His mind there is also no "self"—He does not regard a self as existing, and He does not possess the self-nature of being the master who makes decisions; moreover, His mind-substance still contains defiled karmic seeds that arise, cease, and change. Only at the stage of buddhahood, when the defiled karmic seeds within the Buddha's tathāgatagarbha—the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna)—have been extinguished and the seeds no longer arise, cease, or change, is there a true self-nature, and only then is it the true self.