The Meaning of the Equality and Non-Difference of All Dharmas

All dharmas are equal and without difference in two respects. In the first respect, all dharmas are subject to arising, ceasing, change, and impermanence; they are unreal, empty, and without self — at the very moment they exist they are empty, and after they cease they are even more empty. In the second respect, all dharmas are of the nature of tathāgatagarbha; their nature is equal and without difference, all are born from the tathāgatagarbha's use of the seeds of the seven great elements, and all manifest the nature of tathāgatagarbha. It is like vessels of gold fashioned from true gold: all of them contain the properties of true gold. The gold vessels differ, but their essence has no difference — all are true gold, and all possess the value of true gold. True gold neither arises nor ceases and does not change, yet gold vessels are subject to destruction; after they are destroyed, what remains is still the unchanging true gold.

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's teachings, but rather to the equality spoken of from the standpoint of the Great Vehicle's teachings. Although the Small Vehicle teachings also speak of the emptiness of all dharmas, and in the sense of emptiness declare all dharmas 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, based on worldly dharmas' characteristics, speak of all dharmas as arising, ceasing, changing, impermanent, and empty, saying that the phenomena of arising and ceasing do not exist forever and ultimately all vanish; after vanishing, nothing remains — from the standpoint of the outcome, all are equal. But worldly dharmas' characteristics are not empty on the level of conventional truth; they all have various marks, and these marks admit of high and low, of wholesome and unwholesome, beautiful and ugly, of arising and ceasing, of material form and mental form. Since there are such distinctions, there is no equality.

The equality of the Great Vehicle teachings is spoken of in terms of the essence of all dharmas: it says that all dharmas are in essence of the nature of tathāgatagarbha, all are the tathāgatagarbha's property of unborn and unceasing seeds. Although tathāgatagarbha uses the seeds of the seven great elements to conjure up the different worldly characteristics of all dharmas, in substance they are all properties of tathāgatagarbha, parts of the whole of tathāgatagarbha; 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 the functions and operations of the seven great element seeds of tathāgatagarbha; the seeds of the seven great elements never change, never arise or cease, never alter — therefore all dharmas neither arise nor cease and do not change, and so all dharmas are equal and non-dual. Viewed from the perspective of tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas are equal; all are the nature of tathāgatagarbha and the marks of tathāgatagarbha. Tathāgatagarbha is one mark, not two marks; therefore all dharmas are one mark, not two marks.

Only after the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only has been brought forth can one observe, directly and in accordance with reality, the nature and properties 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 tathāgatagarbha; the seeds within tathāgatagarbha are unborn and unceasing, inherently existent, with no distinction of high or low, superior or inferior. Therefore the dharmas formed from the seeds are also equal, without distinction of high or low, superior or inferior — all are equal and without difference. But from the perspective of the phenomena of worldly dharmas, all dharmas have inequality; this is an inequality manifested in the marks. The relationship between this and the equality spoken of in the Buddhadharma is one of dialectical unity.