Types of Sound Objects

The first volume of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra divides sound-dust into many kinds, and according to whether it is held and sustained by one's own tathāgatagarbha, it is divided into three types. The first type is sound held and sustained solely by one's own tathāgatagarbha, called "sound of the great elements sustained by internal grasping" (internal upādāna of the great elements). For example, one's own voice speaking, coughing, breathing, sounds produced by the internal organs, and so on. The second type is sound of the great elements both sustained and not sustained, such as the sounds produced by friction when one's own body comes into contact with external material objects—for example, the sound of walking, the sound of picking things up, the sound of putting on clothes, the sound of the body striking against material objects, and so on. These are sounds produced by the interaction of one's own tathāgatagarbha with external material objects. The third type is sound of the great elements not sustained, meaning that this kind of sound is not solely held and controlled by one's own tathāgatagarbha. For example, the natural sounds of the universe, the sounds of wind and rain, thunder, the flowing sounds of oceans and rivers, the sounds of various machines, and so on—these are jointly held and sustained by the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings sharing common karma.

There is still much more to the content of sounds; sounds have many attributes, and their categorization is difficult to delineate and very complex. All of these are functions of the tathāgatagarbha; the vast majority are the result of the joint holding and functioning of all the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings sharing common karma, and they are all produced from the arising, ceasing, and transformation of the four great elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. Everywhere there are the functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha; there is simply no genuine functioning of the five aggregates themselves, and therefore the whole is precisely suchness (tathatā). No one can find a single thing, a single dharma, that is not the functional operation of the seven great seeds of the tathāgatagarbha—all are the workings of the tathāgatagarbha, and all must be credited to the tathāgatagarbha. The seven consciousnesses still depend on the tathāgatagarbha to extensively create the various karmas, while the tathāgatagarbha, in its simple-minded way, takes charge of everything, never discriminating, never refusing, responding to every request—this is called "responding to a thousand prayers in a thousand places"—going wherever there is something to be done, and it is also called "neither coming nor going."