Can the Manas Silently Contain the Tathāgatagarbha?

Question: The manas silently encompasses all dharmas, including silently encompassing the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha does not exercise mastery over any dharmas; it has no self-nature and must operate together with the manas, being inseparable from it. Can we then say that the manas is the mind-king, while the tathāgatagarbha is the mental factor (caitta) of the manas?

Answer: Although the manas silently encompasses all dharmas, these dharmas do not include the tathāgatagarbha, because the manas does not know that the tathāgatagarbha exists, nor does it know what specific functions the tathāgatagarbha has. What the manas silently encompasses are those functions and operations that arise from the tathāgatagarbha; it delights in and clings to those operations arising from the tathāgatagarbha, yet does not know that these functions all belong to the tathāgatagarbha. Mistaking them for its own functions, it continuously and endlessly grasps at them with craving and attachment.

If the manas could silently encompass the tathāgatagarbha, it should know the operations of the tathāgatagarbha, knowing that the dharmas of the five-aggregate world are all produced through the operations of the tathāgatagarbha, and that it itself has nothing to do with it. In that case, the manas would be able to eliminate the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), and could also eliminate self-grasping and dharma-grasping; all the ignorance in its mind should be able to be broken through. But in fact this is not so. Therefore, it is said that the manas does not silently encompass the tathāgatagarbha itself, but rather silently encompasses the functions and operations arising from the tathāgatagarbha, mistaking those operations for its own functions. This is called internally grasping the functions of the tathāgatagarbha as "self." It is also for this reason that the manas gives rise to many afflictions such as self-conceit, self-love, and self-grasping, with ignorance deep and heavy.

Although the tathāgatagarbha has no capacity for mastery and does not actively dominate any dharmas, always following along with the manas in operating all dharmas and being inseparable from the manas, the tathāgatagarbha does not belong to the manas; it is not a mental factor of the manas, and the manas is not the mind-king of the tathāgatagarbha. Quite the contrary: the tathāgatagarbha is the mind-king, and the manas is the mental factor. Because the tathāgatagarbha can determine whether the manas exists or not, providing the seeds for its survival, the tathāgatagarbha is the mind-king of the manas, and the manas is a mental factor of the tathāgatagarbha. From another perspective, the tathāgatagarbha cannot always follow along with the manas; in many cases, the tathāgatagarbha follows along with karmic seeds. Many of the manas's wishes and desires cannot be fulfilled by the tathāgatagarbha, yet the tathāgatagarbha can constantly and unceasingly output karmic seeds, following along with them. Therefore, the manas has no way to be the mind-king of the tathāgatagarbha, and the tathāgatagarbha cannot be a mental factor of the manas, nor does it belong to the manas.