The Meaning of “All Is Created by the Mind”

"All is created by the mind alone" means that all dharmas are produced by the mind of the tathāgatagarbha, including the five aggregates and eighteen sense fields of sentient beings, the material world of the universe, and the buddha-lands of the ten directions. "The myriad dharmas are consciousness only" means that all the six sense-object realms we come into contact with are manifested through the combined functioning of the eight consciousnesses, with the mind consciousness, the manas, and the tathāgatagarbha—these three consciousnesses—being primary as the transformative agencies (parināma), manifesting and transforming into all realms. The "mind" among body, speech, and mind refers to the mind consciousness; it cannot produce the myriad dharmas, because it is itself a conditioned, arising-and-ceasing dharma and possesses no seeds; therefore it cannot directly generate all dharmas and is not the "mind" of "mind-only." The cause in the dharma of dependent origination is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, and the conditions are all karmic conditions; all dharmas produced by causes and conditions are ultimately empty, yet within them there is what is not empty—that is the tathāgatagarbha. Among bodily, verbal, and mental actions, the manas takes the leading role; when the manas is subdued, the mind consciousness does not arise, and bodily, verbal, and mental actions all cease. When the ignorance of the manas ceases, there is then the capacity to extinguish bodily, verbal, and mental actions.