How to Understand That Every Dharma Is Tathatā?

All dharmas are tathatā: all are born of and upheld by the tathāgatagarbha, and all possess the tathāgatagarbha nature, the nature of reality, and the nature of suchness. Since all dharmas are born of the tathāgatagarbha, they are manifested by it through the seven intrinsically existing great seeds, and all possess the self-nature of the great elements; they are all real and such as they are. And the tathāgatagarbha and its seeds do not shift or turn with the arising, ceasing, and changing of any dharma; they are real and unchanging, and are therefore also called tathatā, possessing the nature of tathatā. In substance, all dharmas born of the tathāgatagarbha possess the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, and so they are all tathatā. This is the meaning of "Every dharma is tathatā."

The tathāgatagarbha only allows the myriad things to arise, cease, and change without stop, while Itself does not change. If the tathāgatagarbha also changed, He would be a dharma subject to arising, abiding, alteration, and extinction, and this would entail an enormous fault. If it were so, then a problem would arise: when was the tathāgatagarbha born, and how was He brought forth? Before He was born, all things and all dharmas did not exist—not even empty space existed. What state would that be? Where would the karmic seeds of sentient beings be stored? Where would the manas reside? If the tathāgatagarbha could cease, how would He cease, and on account of what would He cease? After He ceased, what would become of the seeds of all dharmas? Would the retributive results of sentient beings still exist or not?

The tathāgatagarbha abides nowhere; of course He does not abide within the myriad things either. Otherwise, after the myriad things are destroyed, would the tathāgatagarbha be destroyed along with them? If one divided the myriad things apart bit by bit, would one then be able to find the tathāgatagarbha? This is fundamentally impossible. The growth of all myriad things up to their destruction is a process of the combined operation of the seeds of the four great elements, and is the result of the tathāgatagarbha's mobilization and upholding of them.

Within all dharmas, one can find the traces of the tathāgatagarbha's operation; His traces and marks are the mental dharmas and material forms formed by the seven great seeds, all of which are the raw materials within the tathāgatagarbha itself. Therefore, upon seeing dharmas one should see the tathāgatagarbha: "A mountainscape fills the eyes, and there is no other dharma"—the whole is just one true dharmadhātu, the tathāgatagarbha that neither arises nor ceases. Not even a hair's breadth, not even a speck of dust, is permitted to stand outside the tathāgatagarbha; all are dharmas within the mind of the tathāgatagarbha, and all are the essence, marks, and functions of the tathāgatagarbha. Sentient beings live within the tathāgatagarbha; in reality there are no sentient beings—there is only the tathāgatagarbha. Which dharma is not the tathāgatagarbha? Which dharma could exist independently, transcending the tathāgatagarbha? None can.