Observing the Stages of Tathāgatagarbha's Functioning

All dharmas of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms are the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. This principle can only be gradually and thoroughly understood through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) after personally realizing the tathāgatagarbha. If one merely imagines with the mind consciousness that there is a tathāgatagarbha performing certain functions or some functions, then there is no way to observe the operation of the tathāgatagarbha, and no way to observe the tathāgatagarbha nature of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms. Understanding is, after all, only understanding; imagination is, after all, only imagination—it is not personal realization.

How the tathāgatagarbha records and stores seeds, and how it actualizes cause and effect—these belong to the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only (唯识种智), which only bodhisattvas who have attained the bhūmis can observe through direct perception. The seed functions of the tathāgatagarbha, its function of manifesting the myriad worldly dharmas, as well as all the seed functions of the tathāgatagarbha, all fall within the scope of the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only, which only bodhisattvas who have attained the bhūmis can observe through direct perception. Pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas (pūrvabhūmika bodhisattvas), because their afflictions are heavy and their meditative concentration (samādhi) is insufficient, lack sufficient wisdom; since the sixth and seventh consciousnesses have not undergone the transformation of consciousness into wisdom, they are powerless to observe these extremely profound and subtle dharma principles. What is merely understood cannot substitute for direct observation.