All dharmas arise from causes and conditions; what I declare is precisely emptiness (śūnyatā)

Conditions (pratyaya) are the external causes and external forces needed for the arising of all dharmas; causes (hetu) are the internal driving force behind the arising of all dharmas—they can also be called karmic seeds, or the karmic actions created in past lives. With the cause of karmic seeds plus the external force of conditions, all dharmas arise. But there is yet another causal factor: who is it that brings forth all dharmas through cause and condition? That factor is none other than the tathāgatagarbha.

For example, in the arising of wheat, the cause is the wheat seed, and the conditions are the climate, the soil, and so on. When cause and condition are both complete, the wheat sprout arises. But the wheat sprout cannot arise on its own initiative; it still requires a person to plant the seed into the soil, to fertilize, irrigate, water, and ventilate it. Without human effort, even if there is a wheat seed and there are earth, water, fire, and wind, the two cannot combine, and the wheat sprout cannot arise. Likewise, if there are only karmic seeds and external conditions, without the tathāgatagarbha to integrate the two, all dharmas will not arise. Because all dharmas are composed of the seven intrinsically existing great seeds (earth, water, fire, wind, space, seeing, consciousness), and the tathāgatagarbha contains these seven great seeds and also holds karmic seeds; moreover, external causes and forces are themselves dharmas among dharmas, likewise composed of the seven great seeds and brought forth by the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, whatever dharma it may be, all dharmas are brought forth by the tathāgatagarbha—that is, they arise from cause and condition. Since all dharmas arise from cause and condition, they did not originally exist but were born later; whatever is born will perish, and when cause and condition cease, all dharmas will cease. Therefore all dharmas are empty; dharmas arising from cause and condition are empty, utterly unobtainable.