The Equal Significance of All Dharmas

The statement that all dharmas are equal and non-dual does not refer to an equality derived from intellectual understanding, nor does it refer to equality understood from the perspective of the Hinayana vehicle. Rather, it speaks of equality from the perspective of the Mahayana vehicle. Although the Hinayana vehicle also teaches the emptiness of all dharmas, speaking of all dharmas as equal in the sense of emptiness, this equality is not true equality in the ultimate sense; it is incomplete equality. This is because the Hinayana vehicle bases its view entirely on conventional dharma characteristics, teaching that all dharmas are subject to birth, cessation, change, impermanence, and emptiness, asserting that phenomena of birth and cessation do not exist forever and ultimately vanish completely. From the perspective of the result, where everything disappears into nothingness, they appear equal. However, conventional dharma characteristics are not empty on the level of conventional truth; they possess various characteristics. These characteristics involve distinctions—high and low, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, birth and cessation, form and mind. Since there are distinctions, there is inequality.

The equality of the Mahayana vehicle is spoken from the essential nature of all dharmas. It teaches that all dharmas are essentially the nature of the Tathagatagarbha. Although the Tathagatagarbha, with its indestructible and unproduced seed-nature, uses the Seven Great Seeds to manifest the diverse conventional characteristics of all dharmas, in essence, these are all attributes of the Tathagatagarbha, part of the whole Tathagatagarbha. Their fundamental nature remains unproduced, unceasing, and unchanging; it is essentially empty and ultimately unobtainable. Regardless of how all dharmas evolve, they are merely the functional manifestations of the Seven Great Seeds of the Tathagatagarbha. The Seven Great Seeds are eternally unchanging, unproduced, unceasing, and immutable. Therefore, all dharmas are unproduced, unceasing, and immutable; hence, all dharmas are equal and non-dual. From the perspective of the Tathagatagarbha, all dharmas are equal; they are the nature and the appearance of the Tathagatagarbha. The Tathagatagarbha is of one mark, non-dual; thus, all dharmas are of one mark, non-dual.

Only after attaining the Wisdom of Consciousness-Only (Vijñāna-mātra-jñāna) can one directly observe, as they truly are, the nature and attributes of all dharmas, and perceive the essence of all dharmas. Only then can one know that all dharmas are manifested by the seeds within the Tathagatagarbha. These seeds within the Tathagatagarbha are unproduced and unceasing; they exist inherently, without distinctions of high or low, superior or inferior. Therefore, the dharmas formed by these seeds are also equal, without distinctions of high or low, superior or inferior; they are all equal and without difference. However, from the perspective of the phenomena of conventional dharmas, all dharmas appear to possess inequality. This inequality is manifested in their characteristics. The relationship between this apparent inequality and the equality taught in the Buddha Dharma is one of dialectical unity.

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