What Are All the Dharma-Marks of the World?

In the third volume of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Buddha taught that the seven intrinsically existing great seeds (earth, water, fire, wind, space, seeing, consciousness) are by nature perfectly harmonious, fundamentally the tathāgatagarbha, neither arising nor ceasing, pervading the entire dharma realm, eternally abiding in luminous clarity, and manifest according to karma. Since the seven great seeds are by nature the tathāgatagarbha itself—like the tathāgatagarbha, neither arising nor ceasing, neither increasing nor decreasing, never defiled, mutually harmonious and unobstructed, forming the illusory world—the seven great seeds, like the tathāgatagarbha, neither come nor go, are neither empty nor existent, unchanging and without difference, purely and eternally existing, yet without any image. Then what is the world constituted by the seven great seeds like, and what is its nature?

The seven great seeds are not empty, because they possess their functions, operations, and attributes, and can give rise to all dharmas; moreover, they neither arise nor cease—they are truly existent dharmas within the substance of the tathāgatagarbha mind. Though not empty, they are without marks, possessing none of the worldly conventional marks whatsoever; therefore the eyes of worldly people cannot see them, cannot perceive them, cannot know them, and so they are called "empty"—in reality, they are emptiness (śūnyatā).

Since the seven great seeds are without marks and empty, and neither arise nor cease, they are never generated out of the tathāgatagarbha, nor do they cease and return into the tathāgatagarbha. The seven great seeds do not exist outside the tathāgatagarbha, yet they can form all worldly dharmas. Then, since markless dharmas cannot form marked dharmas, the worldly dharma-marks too are still empty, without marks—emptiness (śūnyatā). Moreover, the tathāgatagarbha is without marks, and marked dharmas cannot be contained within it, because they are mutually incompatible; therefore all worldly dharmas manifested by the seven great seeds must also be without marks in order to exist within the empty, markless tathāgatagarbha.

Then why do sentient beings see all worldly dharmas as having marks? Why do sentient beings perceive worldly dharma-marks as having marks? For example, sentient beings see a material body of the four great elements, a body of the seven great elements and the five aggregates (pañcaskandha), walking from place A to place B, with the five aggregates vividly manifest—there is self, others, objects, time, space, and location; there is everything, nothing lacking. What is all this? Why are there the marks of form, the marks of mind, the marks of dharmas? The four and five great elements have never arisen and will not go out from the tathāgatagarbha—so why do the conventional marks of the material body and the various object-marks appear? The great element of seeing and the great element of consciousness have never arisen and will not go outside the tathāgatagarbha—so why are worldly mind-marks born and made manifest?

The material body is a false mark, an illusory mark; in reality it does not exist. The body of the five aggregates is a false mark, an illusory mark; in reality it does not exist. Place A and place B are false marks, illusory marks; in reality they do not exist. Time and space are false marks, illusory marks; in reality they do not exist. What is seen is illusory; the seeing too is illusory; even the illusion itself is illusory.

Since none of these dharmas has ever arisen, there can be no talk of ceasing. The seven great seeds have never gone outside the tathāgatagarbha—they have never emerged from the tathāgatagarbha at all, nor have they ever ceased, nor returned into the tathāgatagarbha upon ceasing. There is simply no such thing. If there were, then there would be dharmas outside the tathāgatagarbha, not belonging to the tathāgatagarbha—then what would be the boundary between such dharmas and the tathāgatagarbha? What would be the relationship between the two? This would be unmanageable. Since all worldly dharmas have neither arisen nor ceased, who exactly has seen these dharmas arise and these dharmas cease? By what means were they seen? Has the one who saw them ever arisen, and will he cease? Has the process and result of seeing arisen or ceased? What dharma-marks are these?

Within the tathāgatagarbha there is also no such thing as a body of the five aggregates going from place A to place B, no such thing as entering the womb, leaving the womb, or departing the body, no such thing as generating some dharma or extinguishing some dharma. All phenomena and dharma-marks are the false seeing of the seven consciousnesses—an illusory seeing—and therefore illusory dharmas are seen. In reality there is no such thing; there is nothing at all. Everyone go to sleep! If you cannot sleep soundly or sleep with an at-ease mind, then get up and go study the Buddha-dharma—study and then realize, striving to realize the substance and true reality of all dharmas, and to clearly recognize all dharma-marks. In the false play of the world there is fundamentally no one, no play, and no spectator. Then what is it? A dream. It is not even a dream; there is not even a dream. Who sees the dream? Who watches the play? No one.

When at last you truly realize these dharmas, go weep bitterly! For beginningless kalpas you have simply died wronged—having engaged in so many karmic actions in vain, all the various grasping and rejecting, craving and clinging, deluded agitation, all the various sufferings and distresses, such painstaking effort, such entanglement—and in the end there is nothing at all. Is that not pitiable?