Do the Seven Great Seeds Really Exist?

Only a truly existing principle-body has the aspect of generative capacity and can give birth to other dharmas. The tathāgatagarbha is a truly existing principle-body and can produce all dharmas, but the tathāgatagarbha must use the seeds of the seven great elements to create all dharmas. In that case, the seeds of the seven great elements must truly exist within the tathāgatagarbha; only then can the tathāgatagarbha make use of them and constitute all dharmas. If they had no real substance and did not truly exist, they could not create other dharmas. Something illusory cannot serve to construct other dharmas, because it does not exist and has 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 state of Nirvāṇa without remainder: the tathāgatagarbha and the seeds of the seven great elements exist forever; even in Nirvāṇa without remainder, they never need to be born—there is no dharma that gives birth to these two; on the contrary, all dharmas are born from these two.