The Meaning of Equality of All Dharmas

To say that all dharmas are equal and non-dual does not refer to the kind of equality arrived at through intellectual understanding, nor to the equality understood from the perspective of the Small Vehicle (Hīnayāna) teachings, but rather to the equality spoken of from the standpoint of the Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna) teachings. Although the Small Vehicle teachings also speak of the emptiness of all dharmas, and in the sense of emptiness all dharmas are said to be equal, this kind of equality is not equality in the true sense; it is an equality that is not ultimate. This is because the Small Vehicle teachings all take their stand on worldly dharmic characteristics (lakṣaṇa) to say that all dharmas arise, cease, change, and are impermanent and empty, saying that the phenomena of arising and ceasing do not exist forever and in the end all vanish, and after vanishing nothing remains—so from the standpoint of the result, everything is equal. However, worldly dharmic characteristics are not empty on the conventional level (saṃvṛti-satya); there are all kinds of characteristics, and these characteristics have distinctions of high and low, of wholesome and unwholesome, beautiful and ugly, of arising and ceasing, of form-characteristics and mind-characteristics. Since there are such distinctions, there is no equality. 

The equality of the Great Vehicle teachings is spoken of from the perspective of the essential nature of all dharmas, saying that all dharmas are in essence of the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. Although the tathāgatagarbha uses the seeds of the seven great elements to conjure up the different worldly dharmic characteristics of all dharmas, in reality they are all attributes of the tathāgatagarbha, parts of the tathāgatagarbha as a whole; in essence they are still unborn, unceasing, and unchanging, and in essence they are all empty and utterly unobtainable. However all dharmas evolve, they are all the functions and operations of the seven great element seeds within the tathāgatagarbha; the seven great element seeds never change, are unborn and unceasing, unchanging and unaltered—then all dharmas are likewise unborn, unceasing, and unchanging. Therefore all dharmas are equal and non-dual. Viewed from the perspective of the tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas are equal; they are all the nature of the tathāgatagarbha and the characteristics of the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha is of one mark, not two marks; therefore all dharmas are of one mark, not two marks. 

Only after realizing the seed-wisdom (bīja-jñāna) of Consciousness-Only can one observe, directly and in accordance with reality, the nature and attributes of all dharmas and observe the substance of all dharmas, and only then can one know that all dharmas are manifested from the seeds within the tathāgatagarbha. Within the tathāgatagarbha, the seeds are unborn and unceasing; they exist from the very beginning, with no distinction of high or low, superior or inferior. Therefore the dharmas formed by the seeds are also equal, without distinction of high or low, superior or inferior—all are equal and without differentiation. However, from the perspective of the phenomena of worldly dharmas, all dharmas have inequality; this is an inequality manifested in their characteristics, and the equality spoken of in the Buddhadharma—these two are in a dialectically unified relationship.