How to Define Real Dharmas and Unreal Dharmas

Real dharmas can be divided into several levels, and likewise illusory dharmas can also be divided into several levels. The most real of all dharmas is the dharma that neither arises nor ceases—the true reality of the dharma realm, the tathāgatagarbha—which does not need to arise and cannot cease; only this is called real. All other dharmas, compared with the tathāgatagarbha, are illusory dharmas, because they are subject to arising and ceasing.

Among the illusory dharmas there are also relatively real dharmas, namely the most primordial dharmas formed when the tathāgatagarbha, either alone or in conjunction with others, outputs the seeds of the six great elements. For example, the physical bodies of sentient beings and the mind of the seven consciousnesses, as well as the six sense-object realms of the material universe (the vessel world)—that is, the external world outside the mind of the seven consciousnesses before the six consciousnesses perceive it. Compared with the tathāgatagarbha, this portion is illusory and unreal; but compared with what the six consciousnesses perceive, it is relatively real, being dharmas generated from the real seeds of the four great elements, the five great elements, and the six great elements.

The dharmas that the tathāgatagarbha further, successively manifests and generates on the basis of this portion of real dharmas are still more illusory dharmas—namely, the entire six sense-object realms within the supreme faculties (indriya) that the six consciousnesses perceive.

Moreover, due to karmic obstructions and problems with the six faculties, the six sense-object realms perceived by the six consciousnesses appear with deviations; this is the most illusory and unreal of all dharmas. Within these, there are still further different levels of the real and the illusory, but because they are too profound and subtle, they are not easy to observe; only when conditions arise can they be analyzed to some extent.