Different sentient beings have different minds, and thus manifest different images.

When a foreigner comes, a foreigner appears; when a Han comes, a Han appears. The tathāgatagarbha is like a mirror: whoever comes before it, it reflects. All dharmas are like images in a mirror, all manifested by the tathāgatagarbha in the way a mirror displays images. The great earth, mountains, and rivers are like images in a mirror; form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma are like images in a mirror. Outside the mirror there is nothing; outside the mind there is not a single dharma. But the minds of sentient beings differ, and so the images manifested also differ. Thus, when an image appears, because each person's mind is different, different viewpoints, opinions, and views arise; they quarrel and dispute with one another, and the world is not at peace.

In the past, three people went to India on pilgrimage to Guanyin Bodhisattva. Entering a stone cave, the three faced the same image of Guanyin Bodhisattva, yet because their cultivation and spiritual attainment differed, the images they beheld differed as well: one saw the image of Guanyin Bodhisattva as a monastic, one saw the image of a layperson, and one saw the image of Guanyin Bodhisattva wearing a crown, and the body colors they beheld also differed greatly. The outer representation was the same for all, yet the inner representation each person beheld differed—which shows that the states of each person's mind were different.

Likewise, with one and the same river: a human sees river water, a deva sees lapis lazuli, and a hungry ghost sees flames. Because their merit differs, the images manifested differ. It is evident that images are transformed by consciousness alone, conjured forth by the eight consciousnesses acting in concert. When sentient beings cultivate the mind and the mind becomes tranquil, the land of the Saha world will turn into a ground of gold, not differing from the land of bliss (Sukhāvatī) by the slightest measure. It is the mind that makes a Buddha; it is the mind that makes a hungry ghost. If the mind has become perfectly tranquil, what need is there to seek rebirth in the West, and then also seek rebirth in the East? The deluded cultivate appearances rather than the mind, and cultivate for a hundred kalpas without ever beholding the major and minor marks (lakṣaṇa-vyañjana).