Analyzing Dharmas Arisen from Causes and Conditions through the Sound of a Drum

I hold drumsticks in my hand and strike the drum, and the sound of boom-boom-boom comes out. Does this drum sound come out of my hand, out of the drum, or out of empty space? When I stop striking the drum, the sound disappears—where has the drum sound gone? Where did the drum sound originally exist?

All dharmas arise from various causes and conditions. That drum sound, and all dharmas, have no place of arising when they arise, and no place of ceasing when they cease; they come from nowhere and go nowhere—all are illusory. Because all dharmas are produced by causes and conditions, whatever is produced is empty and illusory.

The Buddha said: "With causes and conditions, the world arises; with causes and conditions, the world ceases." These dharmas are spoken from the perspective of the Small Vehicle's teaching. If we speak from the perspective of the Great Vehicle, all dharmas have a source of origin—nothing surpasses having a source of origin. Wherein lies the goodness of this? All dharmas are produced by the tathāgatagarbha, and there is not a single dharma that can exist apart from the tathāgatagarbha; none escape from the palm of the Tathāgata's hand.

The drum, the drumsticks, and the drum sound are all produced by the tathāgatagarbha, which, in accordance with various conditions, transmits the seeds of the four great elements. Therefore they are called dharmas produced by causes and conditions; dharmas produced by causes and conditions, the Buddha said, are precisely emptiness. All dharmas are produced by one's own mind, and this mind is the tathāgatagarbha, which is also the ālayavijñāna. However, the tathāgatagarbha alone cannot produce any dharma; there must also be the seven deluded consciousnesses and karmic seeds, with the real and the deluded operating in coalescence, for dharmas to be produced. Therefore, on every single dharma there is the operation of both the true mind and the deluded mind. On all the dharmas of the five aggregates, when the deluded mind, deluded marks, and deluded realms are excluded, what remains—that unmoving mind—is the true dharma, the tathāgatagarbha.