All dharmas are empty—but is karma empty or not?

Karma and its retribution are also one dharma among all dharmas, a temporary phenomenon of an arising-and-ceasing nature. No matter what kind of karma and retribution it is, it can change, can arise, and can perish; it has arising, ceasing, and alteration. Therefore karma and retribution are illusory and empty. For example, experiencing retributive suffering, experiencing retributive happiness, experiencing retribution that is neither suffering nor happiness, experiencing the retribution of transmigration through the six realms—once these retributions are fully experienced, they come to an end; the retribution concludes, and the karmic seeds stored in the tathāgatagarbha also disappear and are seen no more. A dharma that arises and ceases is illusory and unreal, and therefore it is empty.

Karma and its retribution are created and borne by the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) of sentient beings. The five aggregates themselves are empty and illusory, unreal; the karmic causes created are thus arising-and-ceasing, empty, illusory, and unreal; the retribution experienced is likewise empty, illusory, and unreal. Karma and retribution are a kind of false appearance within the phenomenal realm of worldly dharmas, arising and ceasing in dependence upon the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings. Among all worldly and world-transcending dharmas, only the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, is not empty, is unborn and unceasing, unchanging, and does not vanish; everything else has arising, abiding, alteration, and cessation, and so all of it is illusory and empty.

Once karmic retribution has been fully experienced, it does not continue; only then do other karmas and retributions appear and come to fruition. Karma and retribution arise, cease, and alter—they are unreal, and therefore empty; karma and retribution are dharmas that arise later, and they can also vanish and end, and so they are empty; at the very moment karma and retribution come to fruition, they are empty and illusory—it is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, that brings the law of karma to realization; on the surface there is something, but in essence there is nothing. Sentient beings create karma illusorily and experience retribution illusorily, suffering in vain, never knowing the illusory nature of suffering itself, still less knowing that the creation of causes of suffering is itself illusory, still less knowing the illusoriness of the fruits of suffering, nor knowing that creating actions of suffering brings fruits of suffering. Not knowing the cause of suffering, not knowing the accumulation of suffering, not knowing the cessation of suffering, not knowing the method of cultivating the path to the cessation of suffering, sentient beings thus transmigrate through birth and death for countless lifetimes. Only when this transmigration has run its course can they awaken and begin to carefully create karmic actions.