Can all sentient beings be completely liberated?

One tathāgatagarbha corresponds to one sentient being and gives birth to one sentient being, which is why the tathāgatagarbha is also called the realm of sentient beings. The Heart Sutra says that the tathāgatagarbha neither arises nor ceases, and the realm of sentient beings neither increases nor decreases. Neither increasing nor decreasing means it does not mutate; neither arising nor ceasing means it never needs to arise and can never cease. Therefore, the number of tathāgatagarbhas is forever fixed and unchanging, and they are infinite and inexhaustible in quantity. Because there are so many sentient beings and so many tathāgatagarbhas that they cannot be counted clearly, they are said to be immeasurable in number.

With so many tathāgatagarbhas corresponding to so many sentient beings, can all sentient beings be delivered to liberation? As long as the realm of sentient beings no longer increases, and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas become ever more numerous, sooner or later all sentient beings will be delivered, no matter how many there are—there will come a day when they are all delivered; only the timing is uncertain, infinitely distant, an unspeakably, indescribably infinite length of time. When all sentient beings have become Buddhas, there will be no sentient beings left to deliver, and there will be no necessity or meaning for the Buddhas to remain in the world; they should all go on to nirvāṇa. The Buddhas have no need to make work for themselves when there is none, and the worlds of the ten directions will likewise have no reason to exist. For those sentient beings who become Buddhas last, cultivation will be extremely effortless—one Buddha protecting and supporting one sentient being—cultivating as if riding a rocket. That final batch of sentient beings will never again have the opportunity to create unwholesome karma; the karmic seeds of ignorance will be eliminated extremely quickly, and they will become Buddhas without needing to deliver sentient beings, because when there is no more ignorance, they have already become Buddhas.