The meaning of the equality and non-differentiation of all dharmas

All dharmas are equal and without difference in two respects. The first respect: all dharmas are subject to arising, ceasing, change, and impermanence; they are unreal, empty, and without self—empty in the very moment they exist, and even more empty after they perish. The second respect: all dharmas are of the nature of tathāgatagarbha; their nature is equal and without difference, all born from the tathāgatagarbha's use of the seven intrinsically existing great seeds, and all manifesting the nature of tathāgatagarbha. It is like vessels made of genuine gold: all of them contain the properties of genuine gold. The gold vessels differ, but their essence is without difference—they are all genuine gold, all possessing the value of genuine gold. Genuine gold does not arise or cease, does not change or vary; yet gold vessels are subject to destruction, and after they are destroyed, they remain the unchanging genuine gold.

To say that all dharmas are equal and non-dual is not the kind of equality arrived at through intellectual understanding, nor the equality understood from the perspective of the Small Vehicle's teachings, but the equality spoken of from the standpoint of the Mahāyāna teachings. Although the Small Vehicle teachings also speak of the emptiness of all dharmas, and in the sense of emptiness all dharmas are 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, grounded in worldly dharma-marks, speak of all dharmas as arising, ceasing, changing, impermanent, and empty; they say that the phenomena of arising and ceasing do not exist forever, that in the end they all vanish, and after vanishing nothing remains—so from the standpoint of the outcome, all are equal. But worldly dharma-marks 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 Mahāyāna teachings is spoken of from the standpoint of the essence of all dharmas: it means that all dharmas are in essence of the nature of tathāgatagarbha, all being the tathāgatagarbha's attribute of unborn and unceasing seeds. Although the tathāgatagarbha uses the seven great seeds to conjure up the different worldly dharma-marks of all dharmas, in substance they are all attributes of the tathāgatagarbha, parts of the tathāgatagarbha as a whole; their essence is still unborn, unceasing, and unchanging, and their essence is also empty, utterly unattainable. However all dharmas evolve, they are the functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha's seven great seeds; the seven great seeds never change—unborn, unceasing, unchanging—therefore all dharmas are unborn, unceasing, and unchanging, and thus all dharmas are equal and non-dual. Viewed from the perspective of tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas are equal, all being the nature and marks of tathāgatagarbha. Tathāgatagarbha is one mark, the non-dual mark; therefore all dharmas are one mark, the non-dual mark.

Only after the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only has arisen 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. The seeds within the tathāgatagarbha are unborn and unceasing; they exist inherently, 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 equal and without difference. However, from the perspective of the phenomena of worldly dharmas, all dharmas have inequality—an inequality manifested in their marks—and this and the equality spoken of in the Buddhadharma stand in a dialectical unity.