The Meaning of "All Is Created by the Mind Alone"

"All is created by mind alone" means that all dharmas are produced by the mind of tathāgatagarbha, including the five aggregates and eighteen elements of sentient beings, the material universe of the vessel-world, and the buddha-lands of the ten directions. "All dharmas are consciousness only" means that all the six sense-objects we come into contact with are manifested through the combined functioning of the eight consciousnesses, with the mind consciousness, the manas, and the tathāgatagarbha—these three consciousnesses—being primary as the transformative agency (parināma), manifesting and transforming into all realms of experience. The "mind" among body, speech, and mind is the mind consciousness; it cannot produce the myriad dharmas, because it is itself a conditioned, arising-and-ceasing dharma and has no seeds of its own; therefore it cannot directly generate all dharmas and is not the "mind" of mind-only. The cause in the law of dependent arising is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, while the conditions are all karmic conditions; all dharmas produced by causes and conditions are ultimately empty, yet within them there is that which is not empty—namely, the tathāgatagarbha. Bodily, verbal, and mental actions are led by the manas; when the manas is subdued, the mind consciousness does not arise, and bodily, verbal, and mental actions all cease. When the ignorance of the manas is extinguished, there is then the capacity to extinguish bodily, verbal, and mental actions.