Why Did the World-Honored One Not Expound the Profound Dharma Meaning of Consciousness-Only to Ordinary Beings and Śrāvakas

Original text of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra: 阿赖耶识甚深细，一切种子如瀑流。我于凡愚不开演，恐彼分别执为我。 

Explanation: The ālayavijñāna is an especially profound and subtle dharma, difficult to know, difficult to understand, and difficult to realize. The seeds contained within the ālayavijñāna flow forth continuously like a rushing torrent, forming the various dharmas of the world of the five aggregates. As for this dharma meaning—that the ālayavijñāna projects seeds to produce worldly dharmas—I am unable to expound it to worldly ordinary beings and ignorant śrāvakas. If it were expounded, ordinary beings and śrāvakas would mistake the dharmas formed by the seeds for self and what belongs to self, and would develop grasping toward them, thereby augmenting birth and death.

The dharmas of the five aggregates and the world formed by the ālayavijñāna through its seeds are all contained within the five aggregates. The inner six elements and the outer six elements, the six sense faculties and the six consciousnesses, combine to form the eighteen realms, which possess the functions and operations of the five aggregates. Among the intrinsically existing seeds within the ālayavijñāna, there are the seven great seeds of earth, water, fire, wind, space, seeing, and consciousness, which neither arise nor cease; the seeds from external input are the arising-and-ceasing karmic seeds left behind by the karmic actions of the five aggregates. These seeds combine and burst forth moment by moment like a rushing torrent, flowing forth without cease year after year, month after month, day after day, kalpa after kalpa, causing the world of the five aggregates to arise and cease, transmigrating without stop. If such a profound and subtle dharma were expounded to ordinary beings and śrāvakas of the two vehicles, they would think that the dharmas of the world of the five aggregates are all originally born from my ālayavijñāna and all belong to what I possess—that since the ālayavijñāna is not empty, I am not empty. This would cause them to grasp even more at the dharmas of the world of the five aggregates born from the ālayavijñāna, and would further increase birth and death.

However, the bhūmi bodhisattvas who possess the seed-wisdom (bīja-jñāna) of Consciousness-Only have realized the functions and operations of all the seeds of the ālayavijñāna, and have realized that the dharmas of the world of the five aggregates are all illusorily manifested by the ālayavijñāna through its seeds, that all are empty, and that there is no real world of the five aggregates. Therefore, their wisdom no longer grasps at the world of the five aggregates, and their mind becomes even more empty. They gradually transition from segmented birth-and-death to the stage of transformational birth-and-death, moving toward great liberation and ultimate liberation. It can be seen that with the same dharma, due to differences in wisdom, differences in cognition arise, and consequently conduct also differs: the result is that one grasps even more, while the other has extinguished grasping and attained liberation.