The Sequential Stages of Observing the Operation of the Tathāgatagarbha

All dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms are the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. This principle can only be gradually comprehended through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) after realizing the tathāgatagarbha. If one merely imagines with the mind consciousness that there is a tathāgatagarbha performing certain functions, then there is no way to observe the operation of the tathāgatagarbha, and no way to observe the tathāgatagarbha nature of the five aggregates and eighteen realms. Understanding is, after all, only understanding; imagination is, after all, only imagination—it is not realization.

How the tathāgatagarbha records and stores seeds, and how it actualizes cause and effect—these belong to the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only, which only bodhisattvas on the bhūmis can observe through direct perception. The seed functions of the tathāgatagarbha, its functions in manifesting the myriad worldly dharmas, and all the seed functions of the tathāgatagarbha fall within the domain of the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only, which only bodhisattvas on the bhūmis can observe through direct perception. Pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas (pūrvabhūmika bodhisattvas), because of their heavy afflictions and insufficient meditative concentration, lack adequate wisdom; since the sixth and seventh consciousnesses have not undergone the transformation of consciousness into wisdom, they are powerless to observe these extremely profound and secret meanings of the Dharma. What is merely understood cannot substitute for observation through direct perception.