Tathāgatagarbha neither arises nor enters

A dharma that has entering and exiting is a dharma of arising, ceasing, and change; it is not an everlasting dharma. Therefore the tathāgatagarbha neither enters nirvāṇa without remainder nor exits from nirvāṇa without remainder. The tathāgatagarbha is not inside nirvāṇa without remainder, nor is it outside nirvāṇa without remainder; nirvāṇa has neither inside nor outside.

The tathāgatagarbha is a dharma abandoned by the worldly; it does not keep company with any worldly dharma. After all the worldly dharmas of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) and the eighteen realms have ceased, the tathāgatagarbha does not cease along with them but abides serenely and independently. It is precisely because of this that nirvāṇa without remainder exists; otherwise, there would not even be nirvāṇa without remainder. If, after the five aggregates and the eighteen realms ceased, everything were simply finished once and for all and nothing existed at all, then there would be no later lives and no lives after those. When the five aggregates and the eighteen realms are born, the tathāgatagarbha is not born along with them, because the tathāgatagarbha originally exists, already present and complete, and does not need to be born.