The Principle of Tathāgatagarbha Archiving

The consciousness seeds within the tathāgatagarbha are transmitted outward and form the seven consciousnesses, and as soon as the seven consciousnesses become active and begin to operate, they function in the form of mental factors (caittas). First are the five universally present mental factors, then the five object-specific mental factors follow along in operation at irregular times, and wholesome and unwholesome mental factors also follow along in operation at irregular times. The seven consciousnesses are sometimes wholesome and sometimes unwholesome, and sometimes neither wholesome nor unwholesome mental factors manifest, but the five universally present mental factors certainly accompany the seven consciousnesses in their present operation at every moment. However, these mental factors have no seeds of their own: among the seven great element seeds there are no seeds of the five universally present mental factors, and within the karmic seeds there are also no seeds of the mental factors. Yet as soon as the seven consciousnesses become active, the five universally present mental factors, the five object-specific mental factors, and the wholesome and unwholesome mental factors come forth and operate along with them, and thus the karmic actions of body, speech, and mind are generated.

The consciousness seeds are like water droplets; when the droplets connect continuously they form a stream of water, and this stream of water corresponds to the consciousness-stream of the seven consciousnesses. But the seven consciousnesses themselves depend on the mental factors in order to operate; only with the auxiliary operation of the mental factors do the seven consciousnesses have their functions and effects. After the seven consciousnesses are born, they direct attention (manasikāra), contact (sparśa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saṃjñā), and deliberation (manasikāra/cetanā) toward the corresponding dharmas—this is the operating process of the seven consciousnesses, interwoven with other mental factors. The consciousness seeds themselves are pure, and the consciousness-stream they form is also pure; but when the mental factors participate in the operation, the seven consciousnesses are not necessarily pure, because among the mental factors there are impure and defiled ones. Consequently, the karmic seeds formed by the seven consciousnesses together with their mental activities are not necessarily pure. Whatever kind of karmic seeds are stored in the tathāgatagarbha, the manas will have corresponding manifestations of that kind, so the manas necessarily corresponds to the karmic seeds.

The tathāgatagarbha makes the seven consciousnesses become active in accordance with the karmic seeds: if the karmic seeds are defiled, the mental activities of the seven consciousnesses are defiled; if the karmic seeds are pure, the mental activities of the seven consciousnesses are pure. When defiled seeds mature, the manas will manifest defiled karma, and that defiled karma is again stored as seeds in the tathāgatagarbha, while the consciousness seeds return to the tathāgatagarbha and remain pure. When the conditions ripen, the karmic seeds of evil created by the seven consciousnesses manifest their retribution, and within that present retribution unwholesome mental activities arise again; relying on those unwholesome mental activities, unwholesome karma is created again, and taking this as cause, unwholesome fruits are produced. In this way karmic cause and effect cycle round and round without end, and sentient beings transmigrate through saṃsāra ceaselessly. When the karmic seeds of wholesome and unwholesome deeds created by the seven consciousnesses meet their conditions, they become active and are exhausted, and the karmic seeds disappear; but all dharmas and all mental activities, like archives, never vanish. The more sentient beings have experienced throughout beginningless kalpas, the more this tathāgatagarbha stores; everything in the long river of lives across the kalpas, down to every single drop, is archived by the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha is without form and without mark; if it were not formless and markless, it could not store so many archives—and thus the archives, too, are formless and markless.