All Dharmas and Tathāgatagarbha Are Neither Identical nor Different

All dharmas return to the One, and this One is the One of the one true dharmadhātu. When viewing all dharmas, one should see them all as tathāgatagarbha. Before enlightenment, this seeing is a similar understanding, akin to guessing and imagining, because without having seen the tathāgatagarbha and the functioning of the Buddha-nature of the tathāgatagarbha, one cannot know or observe it. All dharmas can only be said to be either one with or two from the tathāgatagarbha; "one and two" means identity and difference. The myriad dharmas and the tathāgatagarbha are neither identical nor different — I have explained this principle countless times already.

If one asks whether two phenomena of the phenomenal world are one or two, the phenomena are certainly different — they are two phenomena — yet in substance they are still one, belonging to the tathāgatagarbha; all are of the nature of the tathāgatagarbha.

Vimalakīrti manifested silent wordlessness, which precisely expresses the various qualities of "non-ness" of the tathāgatagarbha, but it is not the tathāgatagarbha itself. The tathāgatagarbha itself never comes forward; only His companion and assistant can come out to meet the assembly. Even the Buddha He does not receive, refusing to show such courtesy — such is His nobility.