Are the Seeds of the Seven Great Elements Truly Existent?

Only a truly existent principle-substance has the aspect of generative capacity and can give birth to other dharmas. The tathāgatagarbha is a truly existent principle-substance, capable of producing all dharmas; however, the tathāgatagarbha must use the seven intrinsically existing great seeds (earth, water, fire, wind, space, seeing, consciousness) to create all dharmas. In that case, the seven great seeds must truly exist within the tathāgatagarbha, really and genuinely existent, so that the tathāgatagarbha can make use of them and constitute all dharmas. If they had no real substance and did not truly exist, they could no longer create other dharmas. Virtual things cannot serve to construct other dharmas, because they do not exist and have no real substance.

To judge whether a dharma is absolutely real, one must see whether it exists at all times, whether it needs to be born, and whether it never changes. "At all times" includes the time of nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa): the tathāgatagarbha and the seven great seeds exist forever; even in nirvāṇa without remainder, they never need to be born, and there is no dharma that gives birth to these two; on the contrary, all dharmas are born from these two.