All dharmas and the tathāgatagarbha are neither one nor different

All dharmas return to the One, and this One is the One of the one true dharmadhātu. When viewing all dharmas, one should see them all as the tathāgatagarbha. Before enlightenment, this seeing is a similar kind of understanding, akin to guessing and imagining, because without having seen the tathāgatagarbha and the operation of the tathāgatagarbha's buddha-nature, one cannot know or observe it. All dharmas can only be said to be either one with or two from the tathāgatagarbha; "one and two" means identity and difference. The myriad dharmas and the tathāgatagarbha are neither one nor different—a principle I have already explained countless times.

If one asks whether two phenomena of the phenomenal realm are one or two, the phenomena are certainly different—they are two phenomena—but in substance they are still one, belonging to the tathāgatagarbha; all are of the tathāgatagarbha's nature.

Vimalakīrti manifested silent wordlessness, precisely expressing the various "no-" characteristics of the tathāgatagarbha, but this is not the tathāgatagarbha's own substance. The tathāgatagarbha's own substance never comes forward; only His companion and assistant can come out to meet the assembly. Even the Buddha, He would not receive—not even granting the Buddha face. Such is His nobility.