Are Karmic Seeds and the Seven Great Seeds Independent of Each Other?

Whether karmic seeds and the seven fundamental seeds are independent can be understood by first examining how karmic seeds are formed. Karmic seeds arise from the physical, verbal, and mental actions created by the seven consciousnesses through the physical body. The agent responsible for creating karma is the manas (the seventh consciousness), which instructs, incites, and directs the six consciousnesses to utilize the physical body to perform physical, verbal, and mental actions. These actions are stored as seeds within the tathāgatagarbha (the storehouse consciousness). When conditions mature in the future, these seeds take root, sprout, manifest as karmic results, and actualize the law of cause and effect.

The seven consciousnesses are formed from the consciousness-element seeds within the seven fundamental seeds. The physical body is formed from the five fundamental seeds of earth, water, fire, wind, and space within the seven fundamental seeds. There is also the seeing-element seed, which represents the tathāgatagarbha's function of perceiving all phenomena. The harmonious operation of the seven fundamental seeds creates karmic actions and forms karmic seeds. This entire process can be said to be the functional activity of the tathāgatagarbha.

The relationship between karmic seeds and the seven fundamental seeds is extremely close; without the seven fundamental seeds, there would be no karmic seeds. However, karmic seeds are independent of the seven fundamental seeds. For example, when the five fundamental seeds of earth, water, fire, wind, and space return to the tathāgatagarbha, they cannot carry karmic actions back with them. These five seeds do not create karmic actions or karmic seeds. Similarly, when the seeing-element seed returns to the tathāgatagarbha, it does not carry karmic actions or karmic seeds. Do the consciousness-element seeds of the seven consciousnesses carry karmic seeds or karmic actions back into the tathāgatagarbha? Certainly not. Because the Buddha states in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra that consciousness seeds themselves are pure—neither wholesome nor unwholesome, nor indeterminate—and remain so eternally. Therefore, consciousness seeds do not carry karmic actions or karmic seeds. However, when consciousness seeds return to the tathāgatagarbha, their acts of discrimination and cognition still follow in seed form into the tathāgatagarbha, albeit not mingled with the consciousness seeds themselves.

Karmic actions are distinguished as wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate (neither wholesome nor unwholesome). This distinction arises only after the consciousness seeds manifest to form the seven consciousnesses, and the accompanying operation of mental factors (caitasika/cetasika) endows the conscious minds with the three natures: wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate. The consciousness seeds themselves lack these three natures. Once the mental factors operate, the conscious minds then possess karmic actions with these three natures, forming karmic seeds. Consequently, the karmic seeds do not mix with the consciousness seeds; the consciousness seeds retain their original pure nature and, when projected outward again, remain pure consciousness seeds. It is merely that the mental factors accompanying the consciousness seeds possess the three natures (wholesome, unwholesome, indeterminate), making it appear as though the conscious minds themselves possess these three natures.

Since the mental factors, accompanying the operation of the conscious minds, give rise to the three types of karma (wholesome, unwholesome, indeterminate), and since the mental factors possess these three natures, while the conscious minds formed from consciousness seeds inherently lack the three natures, it follows that karmic seeds are related to the mental factors. When the mental factors change, the karmic seeds change; when the mental factors are pure, the karmic seeds are pure. Therefore, the seven fundamental seeds and karmic seeds are two distinct mechanisms. Although they are profoundly interconnected, they should not be conflated.

So, when the tathāgatagarbha projects the seven fundamental seeds, do they carry information from the karmic seeds? They cannot, because the seven fundamental seeds are pure and are not intermingled with karmic seeds. The seven fundamental seeds of all sentient beings, including Buddhas, are equally identical and without distinction. The difference lies in the mental factors. Karmic seeds are related to the mental factors, and the purity or impurity of the conscious minds is related to the mental factors. The key to spiritual practice lies in changing the mental factors, not in changing the seven fundamental seeds or the consciousness seeds. These seeds cannot be altered; one can only change the mental factors, thereby transforming the karmic seeds, making them utterly pure. Only then can one become a Buddha Bhagavān (World-Honored One), as pure as the tathāgatagarbha.