All dharmas arise from causes and conditions; I declare them to be empty.

Conditions (pratyaya) are the external conditions and external forces needed for the arising of all dharmas; causes (hetu) are the internal driving force for the arising of all dharmas—they can also be called karmic seeds, or the karmic actions performed in past lives. When the cause of karmic seeds is joined with 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 causal factor is none other than the tathāgatagarbha.

For example, take the arising of wheat: the cause is the wheat seed, and the conditions are the climate, the soil, and so on. When cause and conditions are complete, the wheat sprout arises. But the wheat sprout cannot arise actively on its own; it also requires someone to plant the seed in 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, but no tathāgatagarbha to integrate the two, all dharmas will not arise. Because all dharmas are composed of the seeds of the seven great elements, and the tathāgatagarbha contains these seeds of the seven great elements and also holds the karmic seeds; moreover, external conditions and external forces are themselves dharmas among all dharmas, likewise composed of the seeds of the seven great elements and produced by the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, whatever kind of dharma it may be, all dharmas are produced by the tathāgatagarbha—that is, they arise from cause and conditions. Since all dharmas arise from cause and conditions, they do not exist originally but are born later; whatever is born will perish, and when cause and conditions cease, all dharmas will cease. Therefore all dharmas are empty; dharmas arising from cause and conditions are empty, utterly unobtainable.