Dependent arising and emptiness by nature are not the center and focus of the Buddha's teachings

The twelve links of dependent origination taught by the World-Honored One in the Āgama sūtras—the canonical texts on the cultivation and realization of liberation in the Small Vehicle—are the dharma practiced by śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas; they do not involve the practice of the Mahāyāna tathāgatagarbha dharma, and are not the direct dharma for attaining buddhahood. Therefore, they cannot be regarded as the ultimate dharma. Buddhist practitioners should not assume that the Buddha-dharma merely teaches that all dharmas are empty. Within all these empty dharmas, there still exists that which is not empty—namely, the unborn and unceasing true mind, the tathāgatagarbha. Without the tathāgatagarbha, all dharmas could not arise through dependent origination. When śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas complete the practice of the twelve links of dependent origination, they realize the emptiness of the nature of dependent origination, knowing that all dharmas of the five-aggregate world arise from causes and conditions—relying on the tathāgatagarbha as the cause, together with ignorance, karmic seeds, and so forth as the conditions, all dharmas come into being.

Since all dharmas depend on various conditions and are produced by the tathāgatagarbha, they are not real; they are empty, illusory false appearances. On this basis, practitioners of the Two Vehicles can attain liberation and escape the suffering of birth-and-death in saṃsāra. However, they have not yet cultivated and realized the Mahāyāna dharma, and do not understand the tathāgatagarbha dharma for attaining buddhahood. Having cultivated and realized only the Two Vehicles among the three vehicles of Buddha-dharma, and not yet understanding the supreme vehicle, they depart from the three realms. They still have beginningless ignorance (avidyā) and dust-like ignorance (ignorance as numerous as dust) that have not been broken through, let alone exhausted; the habitual tendencies of ignorance and the latent dispositions of afflictions have not been severed. Therefore, they are still far, far from the Buddha.

Thus, what the Buddha awakened to at the time of his attainment of the Way could not possibly have been the Two Vehicle dharma of the emptiness of the nature of dependent origination; it must have been the supreme vehicle dharma of the tathāgatagarbha. When the Buddha gazed upon the morning star in the night and saw the Buddha-nature with his eyes, he saw the true Buddha-nature—the seeing of the nature at the buddha-bhūmi. Then the great perfect mirror wisdom (ādarśajñāna) manifested, and with the four wisdoms perfectly clear, he could attain buddhahood. It was not the shallow Two Vehicle dharma of the emptiness of the nature of dependent origination as mistakenly understood by worldly people—the two are vastly different in essence.

If the Buddha had only awakened to the Two Vehicle dharma of the emptiness of the nature of dependent origination, he could not have taught sentient beings the true tathāgatagarbha dharma of the Mahāyāna for attaining buddhahood. Then the Buddha-dharma would be incomplete, with an enormous deficiency, and sentient beings could not obtain the true, greatest, and ultimate benefit. Nowadays sentient beings misunderstand the Buddha-dharma too severely, and their views are too shallow: they all take the emptiness of the nature of dependent origination as the center and focal point of the Buddha-dharma, unable to connect it with the source of all dharmas, not knowing the origin of all dharmas, not knowing the source of the world. This is precisely the defect and abuse of the Buddha-dharma today.