Are There Secret Matters in the World?

Everyone's tathāgatagarbha is truly remarkable; its functions and nature are hard to imagine. Sentient beings with insufficient wisdom find it difficult to understand the secret workings of the tathāgatagarbha, difficult to understand its sustaining and upholding function with respect to all dharmas. Therefore it is said that the tathāgatagarbha has unknowing acceptance and sustenance (aparigṛhīta). When one's wisdom becomes deeper and broader, one will gradually come to know the various sustaining functions of the tathāgatagarbha, and then it can no longer be said that the tathāgatagarbha's sustenance is unknowable. Knowing or not knowing depends on each person's cultivation and wisdom.

At all times the tathāgatagarbha is manifesting and sustaining all dharmas pertaining to the five-aggregate body, as well as the body's living environment and the six sense objects. Nothing, however small, that concerns the five-aggregate body escapes Him; He knows it all and records it, and in the future there will be karmic retribution. For example, if behind someone's back, without the person concerned knowing, one curses and slanders him, the tathāgatagarbhas of both people will make a record. When they meet in the future, they will inexplicably feel an inner estrangement toward each other, and one will repay the other. Although the five aggregates of the person who was cursed do not know about this, his tathāgatagarbha knows it, and so it is archived.

Why can that person's tathāgatagarbha know this? Because everyone's tathāgatagarbha has the same nature, belonging to the same category, and it pervades all times, all places, all realms, and all stages. That is to say, the tathāgatagarbha pervades all times—past, future, and present; it pervades the six sense bases and the six sense objects, pervades the realm of the six consciousnesses, pervades the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm, and pervades the worlds of the ten directions. Since this is so, whenever something is related to the five aggregates that He sustains, the tathāgatagarbha has a resonance with it and will know it. Moreover, between tathāgatagarbhas there is also a relationship of mutual coordination and cooperation.

Everything one does is recorded by one's own tathāgatagarbha, and everything related to oneself is also collected and archived by one's own tathāgatagarbha. Therefore the manas, relying on the tathāgatagarbha's discernment, knows everything related to oneself, and will alert the mind consciousness that something special is about to happen. Because the tathāgatagarbha knows future events—though not their specific contents—it will hint at certain things so that the five aggregates become alert.

When two people whisper together, gossiping about others, the tathāgatagarbhas of both will record it, and the tathāgatagarbha of a third person will also perceive it and make a record at the same time. Then the third person's manas, relying on his own tathāgatagarbha, will have some perception and will alert his mind consciousness; the mind consciousness will then know something is up. But not knowing the specific matter, he will feel strange inside; upon seeing the two people he will feel somewhat awkward, and those two, upon seeing him, will also feel somewhat awkward. So in this world there are truly no secrets at all.

The tathāgatagarbha also sustains the circumstantial environment in which the five aggregates live—the six sense objects. If the six sense objects belong to one's own five aggregates, the tathāgatagarbha sustains them; if the circumstantial environment has no karmic connection with the five-aggregate body, the tathāgatagarbha cannot sustain it personally, and it must be sustained jointly by the tathāgatagarbhas of beings sharing collective karma. For example, a person raises a potted flower and it thrives; if he gives it to another person, once the flower arrives at the other person's home it will grow poorly, perhaps gradually withering and even dying. This is related to beings' circumstantial retribution. Some orchards and fruit trees, or some animals, thrive under one person's care and feeding; when another person takes over, the animals or fruit trees do poorly, change for the worse, or even die—all of these are karmic conditions. Under the care of an owner with whom it has karmic affinity, an animal lives well; with an owner with whom it has no affinity or only shallow affinity, it lives poorly and may even die. Organ transplantation follows the same principle: an organ sustained by another person's tathāgatagarbha, once placed in one's own body, will gradually come to be sustained solely by one's own tathāgatagarbha. If the karmic affinity between two people is poor and the manas rejects it, the two tathāgatagarbhas will not cooperate and hand over smoothly, and the transplant will not succeed.