The Causes of Suffering Retribution

Why does our world have alternating four seasons, with winters too cold and summers too hot, sometimes continuous rain and drizzle, sometimes unending ice and snow?

This is brought about by the evil karma of sentient beings. The evil karma created in past lives is stored in each one's tathāgatagarbha; when the conditions ripen, the tathāgatagarbha will output the seeds of that evil karma, and the retributive results for sentient beings will manifest. The living environment is the circumstantial retribution, which exists in dependence upon sentient beings' five aggregates (pañca-skandha); the body of the five aggregates is the direct retribution, the true subject that undergoes suffering. All these retributive results are manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. The source of these unsatisfactory living conditions is the tathāgatagarbha—it is He who outputs the seeds of the four great elements and the six great elements, forming the five aggregates that undergo suffering retribution and the harsh environment, transforming our world into one with cold and heat and all kinds of suffering.

If we go to settle accounts with the tathāgatagarbha, He will say: go settle accounts with the manas; I merely accord with it and do not act as the master—it was not that I actively intended to create all this suffering retribution. If you go ask the manas, the deluded manas cannot explain why, so it must quickly let the mind consciousness analyze what is going on; the mind consciousness must then use theories from the Buddha-dharma, such as cause and effect, to think, analyze, and verify, and then report to the manas. Once the manas knows, it will make body, speech, and mind act carefully so as to create no more karma.

From now on, whatever unsatisfactory things we encounter, we should go to the tathāgatagarbha—the source is there with Him; it is all He who brought them about. But we should not wrong Him either. Following the vine to find the melon, in the end it comes down to the manas itself; the mind consciousness itself also bears a certain responsibility. These two are the principal offenders, the main targets of education and reform. Our practice is precisely to educate and reform the mind consciousness and the manas; once they are reformed, the world becomes beautiful, perfect, and tranquil (praśama).