Observing the Sequence of Tathāgatagarbha's Functioning

All dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms are of the nature of Tathāgatagarbha. This principle requires realization of Tathāgatagarbha through direct experience before contemplation can gradually lead to thorough comprehension. Merely imagining with the conscious mind that there exists a Tathāgatagarbha performing certain functions makes it impossible to observe the operation of Tathāgatagarbha and impossible to perceive the Tathāgatagarbha nature within the five aggregates and eighteen realms. Understanding remains understanding, and imagination remains imagination—neither constitutes direct realization.

How Tathāgatagarbha records and stores seeds, and how it actualizes cause and effect, belong to the wisdom pertaining to the consciousness-only doctrine (vijñapti-mātratā), which only ground-level bodhisattvas can directly observe. The seed-function of Tathāgatagarbha, its function of manifesting all phenomena of the world, and all seed-functions of Tathāgatagarbha fall within the scope of the wisdom pertaining to the consciousness-only doctrine, observable only by ground-level bodhisattvas through direct perception. Bodhisattvas below the first ground, due to heavy afflictions and insufficient meditative concentration, lack sufficient wisdom; their sixth and seventh consciousnesses have not yet transformed into wisdom, rendering them incapable of observing these profoundly subtle Dharma principles. Intellectual understanding cannot substitute for direct observation.