Tathāgatagarbha's Sustaining of the Embryo and the Body-World (Four)

All dharmas cannot be separated from the sustaining function of the tathāgatagarbha. For example, when we watch the wind blowing outside and the trees swaying ceaselessly, in fact it is all the tathāgatagarbha functioning; moreover, it is not one person's tathāgatagarbha operating, but the result of the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with common karma working together. Therefore, it is not the wind that makes the trees sway. The wind itself is illusory and has no autonomy; it is a dharma born by the tathāgatagarbha, and thus it has no active function of shaking the trees. Rather, the tathāgatagarbha uses the wind as a condition to produce its function, causing the trees to sway. The phenomenon of the wind blowing itself is also jointly produced by the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with common karma.

Take another example: when the clothes we wear become old, worn out, or destroyed, the tathāgatagarbha is at work in all of this. It is not that the clothes themselves can decay, wear down, become damaged, or perish—all of these are functions arising from the tathāgatagarbha employing the seeds of the four great elements. There is no dharma that can escape beyond the tathāgatagarbha. For instance, the sofa in one's home gradually becomes old, wears down, and then is destroyed—all of this involves the operation of the tathāgatagarbha. The sofa itself cannot arise, cannot cease, cannot deteriorate, and cannot wear out by itself; all of these are the result of the sustaining function of the tathāgatagarbha.