The Middle Way Nature of Tathāgatagarbha

Saying that the tathāgatagarbha is compassionate, loving, joyful, and giving toward sentient beings is merely a metaphor. The tathāgatagarbha has no mind; it is neither compassionate nor loving, neither joyful nor giving; it does not engage with the realms of the six sense objects, does not know that sentient beings exist, and does not know the suffering of sentient beings. The tathāgatagarbha has no selfishness, and neither does it have selflessness; the tathāgatagarbha has no fear, and neither does it have fearlessness. Such is the level of ultimate reality. The tathāgatagarbha is complete with the ten thousand practices, yet in actuality He does not practice a single dharma and does nothing at all.

The meaning of "faculty and sense object sharing the same source" is that both the faculties and the sense objects equally originate from the tathāgatagarbha. Apart from the manas, the faculties and sense objects are all composed of the seeds of the four great elements, all manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, and are the tathāgatagarbha's bestowal. He makes no distinction among the sense objects—He pays no heed to whether they are wholesome or unwholesome, true or false, good or bad—He simply delivers seeds in accordance with karmic seeds to give rise to and manifest them, and disregards everything else.