Cultivation Is Relying on the True Mind Tathāgatagarbha to Remove the Ignorance and Defilements of the Seven Consciousnesses.

Apart from the tathāgatagarbha itself, everything is a false and illusory dharma, including studying Buddhism and practicing, including doing good deeds and delivering sentient beings, including even the dharma of attaining buddhahood—all the Buddha-dharmas are likewise false and illusory dharmas, born from the tathāgatagarbha, arising and ceasing moment by moment. Only the tathāgatagarbha is unborn and unceasing. Nirvāṇa is also a false and illusory dharma; the perfected-real nature (pariniṣpanna) of the eighth consciousness is also a false and illusory dharma; the suchness nature of the eighth consciousness is also a false and illusory dharma—all of them can only manifest by relying on the tathāgatagarbha. The five aggregates of body and mind are even more illusory. How should we treat these false and illusory dharmas?

We should rely on the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha, to cultivate the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses, removing the ignorance and defilement of the seven consciousnesses; when ignorance is exhausted, the transformation of the consciousnesses into wisdom is brought to completion. It is not a matter of cultivating the true, because the tathāgatagarbha does not need our cultivation—He is inherently endowed with the Tathāgata's wisdom and virtuous marks, the precepts, meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā) are perfectly and completely present in Him, He has no ignorance, He is endowed with all wholesome dharmas and merits, His mind-substance is unconditioned, and His self-nature is pure. Therefore He has no afflictions, no birth and death, no saṃsāra; He is fundamentally unfettered, and His self-nature is liberated. The tathāgatagarbha Himself does not practice, and we need not cultivate Him either; we only need the seven consciousnesses to become as pure as the tathāgatagarbha, no longer having birth and death, and then we are liberated and at ease. Therefore, the seven consciousnesses must realize the tathāgatagarbha before there can be something to rely upon.