The Tathāgatagarbha's Sustaining of the Embryo, the Sense Faculties, and the Material Environment (IV)

All dharmas are inseparable from the sustaining function of the tathāgatagarbha. For example, when we watch the wind blowing outside and the trees swaying without cease, in fact it is all the tathāgatagarbha functioning; moreover, it is not just one person's tathāgatagarbha operating, but the result of the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with shared karma working together. Therefore, it is not the wind that makes the trees sway. The wind itself is illusory and lacks autonomy; it is a dharma generated by the tathāgatagarbha, and thus has no inherent capacity to actively move the trees. Rather, the tathāgatagarbha makes use of the wind as a condition to produce its function, causing the trees to sway. The phenomenon of the wind blowing itself is also the joint operation of the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with shared 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 produced by 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 your home gradually becomes old, worn, and then ruined—all of this is the operation of the tathāgatagarbha. The sofa itself cannot arise by itself, cannot cease by itself, cannot deteriorate by itself, cannot wear out by itself; all of these are the result of the sustaining function of the tathāgatagarbha.