The Tathāgatagarbha Can Display Information of All Dharmas

Who is it that reveals all the secrets about oneself for others to know? When we come into contact and interact with people, we can immediately understand some general information about the other person—how is that person's information revealed? When looking at a photograph, the other person is not actually present, so there is no need for the other person's tathāgatagarbha to transmit information. Yet one can still discern the other person's personality, age, temperament, disposition, and life background—how is this known? For someone who died several hundred or even a thousand years ago, as long as a few relics remain, such as hair, teeth, and so on, a person with supernatural powers can, based on these relics, learn where that person is now, what identity they have, and what the condition of their five-aggregate body is—based on what is this known? Especially the Buddha, who possesses boundless recollection of past lives (pūrvanivāsānusmṛti): everything, great and small, from beginningless kalpas ago for every single person, the Buddha knows completely, including the most minute details—how does the Buddha come to know all this?

Even when asleep, unconscious, and without mind consciousness, the information of the five aggregates can still be revealed outward; even a single photograph can reveal all the information of sentient beings. A photograph is jointly held and sustained by many tathāgatagarbhas; it is not something one person's tathāgatagarbha alone can sustain. A photograph, like written text, does not involve the other person's tathāgatagarbha or five aggregates; it is one's own tathāgatagarbha that transforms the photograph and text into inner material sense-objects (inner rūpa-viṣaya). When the mind consciousness has wisdom, it can deliberate upon, analyze, and process the hidden meanings within the photograph and text; without wisdom, it deliberates and analyzes erroneously and arrives at incorrect conclusions.

Relics carry information left behind by their owner. The tathāgatagarbha can follow the trail to find that person's tathāgatagarbha, and from the other person's tathāgatagarbha learn all the information. When the mind consciousness wants to know, it relies either on supernatural powers, or on the manas alerting it to some important, relevant information. For example, a person stays in a room and then leaves; several hours or half a day later, a snake enters that room and can know that just now a person or some living being was dwelling here, because part of that person's information still remains in the room—such as temperature, smell, and so on. The snake can discern this information and then, following these traces, track down that person. The tathāgatagarbha is like that snake—extremely sensitive and omniscient—it all depends on how much wisdom the mind consciousness has, and whether it can excavate the information from the manas and the tathāgatagarbha.

All tathāgatagarbhas are within the "internet," publishing outward at all times and places all the information of their own five-aggregate bodies, without withholding anything, while at the same time being able to obtain all information from other tathāgatagarbhas. The tathāgatagarbhas exchange what they have with one another; there are no secrets—He neither deliberately conceals anything nor deliberately reveals anything; His mind is completely open. The manas of every sentient being, relying on its own tathāgatagarbha, can also know the relevant information within the other person's tathāgatagarbha; the manas can thus know the other person, and so people with karmic affinity have a certain resonance with one another.

The tathāgatagarbha can at any time and place take in all information from outside the five-aggregate body, and the manas can likewise at any time and place contact the external realms of the six sense objects. For important information that is useful to oneself, the manas alerts the mind consciousness to know it; for unimportant information, the manas handles it itself—either ignoring it, or storing it in the tathāgatagarbha as a record for reference. In this world, no one knows what secret cannot be leaked, nor even whether secrets exist at all. The matters in each person's mind are not known only to oneself; there are even more thoughts and ideas that oneself does not know, which others have long since come to know. Are there any secrets in this world? A person with recollection of past lives (pūrvanivāsānusmṛti) can, like consulting archives, rapidly retrieve every bit and piece of each person's experiences since beginningless kalpas, omitting not even the smallest matter—but all of it is retrieved through the tathāgatagarbha, and all secrets are likewise leaked out by the tathāgatagarbha.