Can the Manas Silently Contain the Tathāgatagarbha?

Question: The manas silently encompasses all dharmas, including silently encompassing the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha does not take charge of all dharmas by itself; it has no self-nature and must operate together with the manas, being inseparable from the manas. 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 likes and clings to those operations produced by 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 and craves them.

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 eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), and could also eliminate self-grasping and dharma-grasping; all the ignorance in its mind should be able to be destroyed. But in fact this is not so. Therefore, it is said that the manas does not silently encompass the tathāgatagarbha, but rather silently encompasses the functions arising from the tathāgatagarbha, mistaking those functions 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 to take charge, and does not actively dominate all dharmas, always following and complying with the manas in operating all dharmas and being inseparable from the manas, the tathāgatagarbha does not belong to the manas, is not a mental factor of the manas, and the manas is not the mind-king of the tathāgatagarbha. On 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, and provides the seeds for the manas's 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 comply with the manas; in many cases, the tathāgatagarbha follows the karmic seeds instead. Many of the manas's wishes and pursuits cannot be fulfilled by the tathāgatagarbha, yet the tathāgatagarbha can perpetually and continuously output karmic seeds and follow the karmic seeds. 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.