The Essence of the Heart Sutra

Chapter 5: The Middle Way Nature of the Tathāgatagarbha

Sutra text: 【舍利子。是诸法空相。不生不灭。不垢不净。不增不减。】

Section 1  The Emptiness-Mark of the Five Aggregates and Eighteen Realms

What are all dharmas? The dharmas spoken of in the Heart Sutra are divided into two major categories: one is material form (rūpa), and the other is mind (citta); together they comprise all the dharmas within the five aggregates and eighteen realms of the threefold world. The five aggregates are the aggregate of form, the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of perception, the aggregate of volitional formations, and the aggregate of consciousness; the eighteen realms include the six faculties: the eye faculty, ear faculty, nose faculty, tongue faculty, body faculty, and manas; the six sense objects: material form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and mental objects; and the six consciousnesses: eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness.

The five aggregates include both material form and mind. Among the eighteen realms, the six consciousnesses together with the seventh consciousness, the manas, are mind, while the rest are material form. The five sense objects discerned by the first five consciousnesses and the mental objects discerned by the mind consciousness all belong to material form. Sentient beings all live amid the six sense objects and the myriad dharmas; the dharmas they themselves experience and contact never exceed these six sense objects. The living environment, the universe as the receptacle-world, and all the trichiliocosms never go beyond the six sense-object realms of form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and dharma.

The five aggregates and eighteen realms, whether material form or mind, all have marks; they all possess the dharma-marks of the threefold world. Form has the mark of form, and mind has the mark of mind, but all these marks are illusory existences and are empty; hence they are called the emptiness-mark. Why do the dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms have marks yet be empty? The Diamond Sutra says: 凡所有相，皆是虚妄。 Because all marks are conjured forth by the tathāgatagarbha, they lack self-mastery (avaśatā); they vanish the moment they are said to vanish, and even their existence is empty illusion, like things in a dream; they are also like a mirage and a shimmering heat-haze—illusory and unreal, seemingly existent yet actually nonexistent.

After a bodhisattva attains seeing the mind, using prajñā wisdom and the power of meditative concentration (samādhi) to engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), he will discover: the five material sense faculties are upheld by the tathāgatagarbha, which outputs the seeds of the four great elements to sustain their existence, with arising, abiding, alteration, and cessation never ceasing; the six sense objects are the inner mental representations manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, resembling form yet not being form, like objects in a mirror; the seven transforming consciousnesses are also consciousness seeds output by the tathāgatagarbha, arising and ceasing in each instant. Among all the dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms, not a single dharma is real and imperishable; it is only that, over countless lifetimes, sentient beings, through ignorance and afflictions, have grasped the empty as existent, chasing phantom shadows as if in a dream, resulting in transmigration through birth and death without liberation.

What is a mirage? When sunlight shines on a beach, the heat vapor rises up, and buildings, people, horses and carriages appear, with the horses and carriages even moving about—an illusory scene manifests; that phenomenon is called a mirage, a false image formed by heat vapor. From afar, those buildings look as real as palaces, with horses running and people walking, just like reality; from a distance one cannot tell that these phenomena are all false, but upon approaching, there is nothing there at all. What is a heat-haze? When sunlight shines on a sandy beach, the heat vapor rises up, hazy and misty; deer, because of thirst, think it is a great river and rush over hoping to drink their fill, but upon arriving close, they see nothing on the sand. The minds of those wild deer are bewitched by the false image of the conjured river water; they believe the river water truly exists, but in reality it is empty, with nothing there. The heat-haze is like that conjured river water: on the surface it seems to exist, but in reality it is empty. The thirsty deer are deceived by their own conscious minds, failing to recognize the truth.

The minds of sentient beings are as foolish as thirsty deer, unable to distinguish true from false, real from illusory. Our minds are still deluded right now, still in a state of inversion, not yet awakened, just the same as being in a dream. The mind of the seven consciousnesses is like those thirsty deer, believing the myriad dharmas to be truly existent, chasing after the myriad dharmas every day, pursuing them for a whole lifetime or even countless kalpas, only to end up with nothing at all. Sentient beings living in the human world, with their seven-consciousness mind clinging lifetime after lifetime to the five desires and six sense objects, scheme and grasp for money, property, status, fame, as well as children and family, for wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep, committing vast evil karma. Some people feel they have succeeded and are smugly self-satisfied, little knowing that everything seen and gained is illusory appearance; when impermanence arrives and the eyes close, the foul bag of skin must be abandoned—what dharma can be obtained? As the saying goes: "When impermanence arrives one day, one then knows one was a person in a dream; nothing can be taken along—only karma follows one." Moreover, impermanence does not refer exclusively to death as impermanence; momentary arising and ceasing, utterly unobtainable—this is true impermanence. Right at the very moment all dharmas superficially exist, they are subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent and illusory, just like a heat-haze.

Section 2  The Emptiness-Mark of the Tathāgatagarbha

Why is the tathāgatagarbha said to be of emptiness-mark? How does it differ from the emptiness-mark of the five aggregates and eighteen realms? Saying the tathāgatagarbha is of emptiness-mark is because it lacks the marks of the six faculties, six sense objects, and six consciousnesses of the threefold world, and lacks the marks of the five aggregates and all worldly marks, yet it is a truly real existence. Of the two kinds of marks—the myriad dharmas of the five aggregates and the tathāgatagarbha—whether false dharmas or real dharmas, all marks are empty, and their essence is in every case the emptiness-nature mind, the tathāgatagarbha. All marks are false and illusory; the mark that has marks is empty, and the mark that has no marks is also empty. The meanings of these two kinds of emptiness differ: the emptiness of what has marks means utterly unobtainable, while the emptiness of what has no marks means lacking appearance and lacking material form.

The five aggregates and eighteen realms are empty while having marks; the tathāgatagarbha is empty while having no marks. The five aggregates and eighteen realms have marks but no nature, hence they are said to be empty; the tathāgatagarbha has nature but no marks, and is also said to be empty. Both are called empty, yet these two kinds of emptiness differ greatly: one is a false dharma, the other a real dharma; one is illusory appearance, the other ultimate reality; one is function, the other essence; one is expedient, the other real; one is dependent origination (paratantra), the other perfected nature (pariniṣpanna). Yet the two are two sides of one inseparable body: appearances depend on the nature to exist, and the nature is revealed through appearances. The tathāgatagarbha, though empty, is a real dharma; the five aggregates and eighteen realms, though existent, are false dharmas. The five aggregates and eighteen realms are not said to be empty only after they cease; they are empty right at the moment of their existence, because they lack self-nature and are not truly real existents. As the Diamond Sutra says, they are like a dream, illusion, bubble, or shadow, manifested through our deluded discriminations. In fact, the five aggregates and eighteen realms are precisely the emptiness-nature mind of the tathāgatagarbha; in their entirety they are the seed-functions of the tathāgatagarbha. If one insists on saying there is a mark, it is the mark of the tathāgatagarbha itself.

Section 3  Why the Emptiness-Mark of All Dharmas Neither Arises nor Ceases

All dharmas are conjured by the tathāgatagarbha, hence all dharmas are said to be of emptiness-mark. Although the true-suchness mind-substance of the tathāgatagarbha, which can generate the myriad dharmas, is truly real existence, it is not existence within the threefold world—it cannot be seen, touched, smelled, or contacted; whatever exists within the threefold world must arise and cease. The tathāgatagarbha is not an existence of the threefold world, and therefore neither arises nor ceases. "是诸法空相。不生不灭。" means that the emptiness-nature mind, the tathāgatagarbha, is not a dharma subject to arising; it has existed since beginningless kalpas. Whatever is subject to arising will cease, but the tathāgatagarbha is not a dharma subject to arising, so it will never cease.

Why are the myriad dharmas of the five aggregates and the world neither arising nor ceasing? This is spoken from the perspective of the theoretical essence of dharmas. The myriad dharmas of the five aggregates and the world lack self-nature; their essential nature is the tathāgatagarbha nature, the functional operation of the emptiness-nature mind, the tathāgatagarbha. The dharma-marks of the five aggregates arise, but the dharma-nature has never arisen, hence it is not true arising; the dharma-marks of the five aggregates cease, but the dharma-nature was originally unborn—how could it ever have ceased? Hence cessation is also illusory cessation. All dharmas illusorily arise and cease upon the surface of the tathāgatagarbha mind-substance, but from the standpoint of the tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas are merely a portion of the functional nature of the tathāgatagarbha; this functional nature is inherently possessed, has never arisen, and will not cease.

To give an example: the scenes in a dream are the subjectively imagined realm manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. We dream that we have become wealthy, with much real estate and farmland, gold, silver, and jewels, cars and airplanes, and so forth; suddenly we wake up, and all this wealth vanishes without a trace. A person of wisdom would naturally not say that the wealth in the dream truly appeared; since the events in the dream never arose, there can be no talk of cessation. By the same reasoning, it can be proven that human life is originally one great dream; all the myriad dharmas of the five aggregates and the world are conjured by the tathāgatagarbha for us, including this so-called "us," which is likewise conjured. If one clings to the five aggregates and says they arise and cease, is that not foolishness?

When a bodhisattva cultivates to the tenth dedication-stage bhūmi and attains the contemplation of "all is like a dream," he can directly observe that all the realm-dharmas experienced by all sentient beings, as well as the bodily, verbal, and mental actions they perform, are all without gain and without loss. It is like a confused person asleep and dreaming, experiencing within the dream sorrows and joys, separations and reunions, impermanent delights, unaware that it is a dream, and within the dream performing many wholesome and unwholesome actions. The bodhisattva then further contemplates his own practice of the bodhisattva path, which is likewise like broadly cultivating the six perfections within a dream—all relying on the illusory appearances of the six sense objects of the world, and on the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses and the various mental factors manifested by his own mind, to practice the bodhisattva path; all are manifestations within a dream, with not a single dharma truly obtainable; hence it is said that the bodhisattva path is like a dream.

Section 4  The Measureless Middle Way Nature

Previously we discussed the Middle Way nature of the emptiness-mark of all dharmas being neither arising nor ceasing. Besides this Middle Way nature, the tathāgatagarbha also has measureless Middle Way natures.

1. Neither Defiled nor Pure

Next, the Heart Sutra speaks of "the emptiness-mark of all dharmas being neither defiled nor pure (na saṃkleśo na vyavadānam)." As we have already discussed, the emptiness-mark of all dharmas refers precisely to the tathāgatagarbha. Why is the tathāgatagarbha neither defiled nor pure?

The tathāgatagarbha is also called the intrinsically pure mind. "Intrinsically pure" contains two layers of meaning: first, it means the tathāgatagarbha has the nature of a truly real, self-existing substance, requiring no dharma to generate it; apart from it, no dharma has a truly imperishable self-nature. Second, it means the tathāgatagarbha has no seeing, hearing, perceiving, or knowing with respect to the six sense-object realms; it generates the myriad dharmas of the six sense objects yet gives rise to no thought and no stirring of mind toward them, gives rise to no afflictions of greed, hatred, or delusion, and has no self-nature, no grasping at self and no grasping at dharmas—hence it is said to be pure.

The mind of the seven consciousnesses creates karma, the five aggregates create karma, and the seeds of that karma are stored in the tathāgatagarbha; the tathāgatagarbha thus stores the defiled and pure karmic seeds of the seven transforming consciousnesses. The tathāgatagarbha is like a cup, and the karmic seeds are like dirty water in the cup: the cup itself is clean and pure, but the water in the cup is not clean, so the whole cup of water is neither defiled nor pure. Saying the tathāgatagarbha is "not defiled" means the water in the cup can be defiled and can also be transformed to purity, but the cup itself will never be defiled by the water; the substance of the tathāgatagarbha has no defilement and no ignorance or afflictions. Saying the tathāgatagarbha is "not pure" is because the water it contains is filthy and impure; the tathāgatagarbha contains defiled karmic seeds. Because the tathāgatagarbha contains the defiled seeds of the seven transforming consciousnesses, the generated mind of the seven consciousnesses has afflictions and ignorance and is impure; yet the tathāgatagarbha, since beginningless kalpas, has never corresponded with afflictions and ignorance, always displaying its own intrinsic purity amid the operation of all dharmas.

The mind-substance of the tathāgatagarbha has always been pure and will remain pure forever without degenerating; intrinsically pure by nature, it constantly abides in nirvāṇa. What is pure is the tathāgatagarbha; what is impure are the first seven consciousnesses and the seeds. Cultivation is the cultivation of the first seven consciousnesses, transforming defilement into purity; the tathāgatagarbha is originally pure and need not be cultivated. Only at the buddha-stage are all the defiled seeds within the tathāgatagarbha completely transformed into pure seeds; at that time the tathāgatagarbha is no longer neither defiled nor pure, but is the utterly pure undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna), also called true suchness (bhūtatathatā), truly living up to the names "true" and "suchness."

2. Neither Increasing nor Decreasing

The meaning of "neither increasing nor decreasing" is, first, that the mind-substance of the tathāgatagarbha contains the seeds of the seven great elements; when these seeds are output, they can produce the myriad dharmas of the threefold world, and the quantity of these seeds never increases or decreases, nor do the functions that produce the myriad dharmas increase, decrease, or change; second, that the number of tathāgatagarbhas in the dharma-realm neither increases nor decreases, and the realm of sentient beings is unchanging; third, that the mind-substance of the tathāgatagarbha never undergoes alteration—it does not keep precepts, does not cultivate, does not learn worldly dharmas, nor does it learn the Buddha-dharma, and its wisdom of original awakening neither increases nor decreases.

The minds of sentient beings' first seven consciousnesses do increase and decrease: when ignorance decreases, wisdom increases; when the power of meditative concentration increases, the conduct of a scattered mind decreases; when precept-conduct grows, evildoing decreases. The mind of the tathāgatagarbha has no gain or loss, no increase or decrease. Through cultivation, defiled mental conduct is transformed into pure mental conduct, yet the quantity of the seeds of the seven consciousnesses does not change, and the quantity of the seeds of the seven great elements undergoes no increase or decrease whatsoever; thus all dharmas manifested by the seeds of the seven great elements neither increase nor decrease. Hence it is said that the emptiness-mark of all dharmas neither increases nor decreases.

3. The Measureless Middle Way Nature of Not-ness 

Besides the Middle Way natures spoken of in the Heart Sutra—"neither arising nor ceasing, neither defiled nor pure, neither increasing nor decreasing"—the tathāgatagarbha has other Middle Way natures. The Madhyamaka Śāstra composed by Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna expounds the eight negations of the Middle Way; the so-called eight negations of the Middle Way are: neither arising nor ceasing, neither annihilated nor eternal, neither one nor different, neither coming nor going. In addition there are: neither empty nor existent, neither long nor short, neither up nor down, neither front nor back, neither speaking nor not speaking, neither acting nor not acting, neither eating nor not eating, neither doing nor not doing, neither cultivating nor not cultivating, neither looking nor not looking, neither listening nor not listening, and so on—measureless Middle Way natures. These Middle Way natures must be realized and experienced one by one after enlightenment; to merely speculate about them without having awakened to ultimate reality results only in "emotional conjecture and intellectual understanding," with not the slightest benefit.