The Problem of Karma Seeds

Karmic seeds are not composed of the seeds of the four great elements; they are a kind of information, an intangible archive. Karmic seeds are like documents in a computer—they have no physical form; when retrieved, they manifest; when not retrieved, they simply do not appear. Even if karmic seeds have disappeared, a person with supernatural powers can still retrieve them and examine that information.

The questions concerning these seeds are all extremely profound dharma principles. At present we can only speculate and imagine, unable to engage in direct contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā). Only after attaining the bhūmis and acquiring the wisdom of the Consciousness-Only seeds can we gradually resonate with and gradually observe these contents.

Karma is divided into pure karma and defiled karma. Only the arhats in Nirvāṇa without remainder create no karma; the Buddha also creates karma, but the karma the Buddha creates is pure karma, not karma born of ignorance. In Nirvāṇa without remainder, because there is no arhat present, no karma is created. As long as there is no manas, no karma will be created—the manas is the creator of karma. In the final analysis, all karmic actions are created by the tathāgatagarbha.