Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (113)

The Buddha speaks the Dharma with a single voice, and sentient beings each gain understanding according to their kind

At night when we fall asleep and dream no dreams, the six consciousnesses—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—all cease. After they cease, where do they go? When we wake up, these consciousness-minds all appear again; when they appear, where do they come from? In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra the World-Honored One says that all dharmas are the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. This Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) does not speak of the tathāgatagarbha. If the nature of the tathāgatagarbha were to be taught, some people would be able to attain enlightenment upon hearing it; yet even without teaching the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, sentient beings can still be led to realize the fruit of the arhat's emptiness, and all can benefit from it. Some of the sūtras taught by the Buddha can both lead people to realize the fruits and lead them to enlightenment—it depends on what indriya sentient beings possess. Those of Small Vehicle disposition can only awaken to the emptiness of the Small Vehicle; those of Mahāyāna disposition, while awakening to the emptiness of the Mahāyāna—the tathāgatagarbha—can also awaken to the emptiness of the Small Vehicle. Because the indriya differ, the degree of awakening to the Way differs; it lies in the level of wisdom of the person hearing the Dharma.

When the Buddha teaches the Dharma, eighty-four thousand people may be listening, but because their wisdom differs, their levels of understanding differ, the fruits they realize differ, and the retributions they obtain also differ. The Buddha teaches the Dharma without discriminative mind, expounding the same Dharma for all sentient beings; because sentient beings' capacities differ, the fruits they obtain differ. Those who have committed great evil karma, obstructed by that evil karma, obtain only a rootless faith; those without the obstruction of evil karma can realize the fruit of the Small Vehicle arhat; those of sharper disposition can realize the fruit of the Mahāyāna bodhisattva; and those of still finer disposition can attain the patience at non-arising of dharmas and obtain the fruit of a bodhisattva at one of the bhūmis. Therefore it is said: the Buddha speaks the Dharma with a single voice, and sentient beings each gain understanding according to their kind. Though hearing the same Dharma, to what degree one understands and realizes is each sentient being's own affair—the Buddha has no partiality.