What Does the Buddha Mean by "Constant"?

The permanence taught by the Buddha is true existence, truly existing, forever unborn and unceasing, unchanging, without beginning or end, never subject to momentary cessation—that is the tathāgatagarbha, the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna). This is utterly different from the divine self (ātman) spoken of by the non-Buddhists. The divine self of the non-Buddhists is the mind consciousness, a dharma subject to arising, ceasing, and change; to take the deluded mind consciousness as the eternal, unchanging true self is to be a non-Buddhist of the eternalist view. The fundamental Buddhadharma always takes the tathāgatagarbha as its point of departure, unfolding all dharmas and giving birth to all dharmas. Any dharma taught apart from this tathāgatagarbha is either eternalism or annihilationism, and is in every case a non-Buddhist teaching. A dharma that will never again undergo change is permanent. In the Buddha-stage undefiled consciousness, the defiled seeds of the seven consciousnesses are no longer stored; the seeds no longer change, so the undefiled consciousness is permanent.

In our present tathāgatagarbha, the defiled seeds of the seven consciousnesses' minds that are stored within it constantly undergo change and transformation; they are not fixed, and so they drag down the tathāgatagarbha, making it impossible for the seeds stored within the tathāgatagarbha to remain unchanged. Therefore, the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings is neither permanent nor impermanent. "There is a thing prior to heaven and earth, formless and originally silent and solitary"—this describes the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha truly exists; it is the forerunner of the myriad things and the master of the myriad things. Therefore, one cannot say that the tathāgatagarbha is merely a noun or concept, nor that it is merely a provisional designation of names. It has real functional intrinsic nature, capable of giving birth to all dharmas and all things; it is a real entity, even though it is formless.