Tathāgatagarbha Is Both Self and Not Self

The tathāgatagarbha is both self and not-self; this principle is profound and most profound. The five aggregates (pañcaskandha) are without self, and all dharmas born from the tathāgatagarbha are without self, because they are all subject to arising and ceasing, empty, impermanent, suffering, not to be grasped, incapable of being grasped, and cannot be held onto. Yet the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings is not suffering, empty, impermanent, or subject to change; within His mind there is also no self—He does not regard a self as existing, and does not possess the self-nature of being the master. Still, the mind-substance contains defiled karmic seeds that arise and cease and undergo change. It is not until the Buddha-ground, when the defiled karmic seeds have been extinguished within the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna), the tathāgatagarbha of the Buddha, and the seeds no longer arise, cease, or change, that there is true self-nature, and only then is it the true self.