Why Are All Dharmas Empty of Marks?

Original text of the Heart Sutra: 舍利子。色不异空。空不异色。色即是空。空即是色。受想行识。亦复如是。舍利子。是诸法空相。不生不灭。不垢不净。不增不减。是故空中无色。无受想行识。无眼耳鼻舌身意。无色声香味触法。无眼界。乃至无意识界。无无明。亦无无明尽。乃至无老死。亦无老死尽。无苦集灭道。无智亦无得。

Explanation: Why does the Heart Sutra contain all these "no's"? How can they be understood from the perspective of Yogācāra? If we explain this passage using the principle of the seven great seeds of Yogācāra, it becomes easy to understand. The dharmas of the five aggregates—form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness—are generated from the seven great seeds within the tathāgatagarbha. From the perspective of worldly dharma-appearance, it seems that there are the five aggregates and their functions and effects; but in essence, they are all the seven great seeds of the tathāgatagarbha and their operations, and therefore all are the functions of the tathāgatagarbha. Thus the worldly appearances of the five aggregates are in fact all false appearances, all empty; in reality they do not exist. Therefore, although the aggregate of form, on the surface, exhibits worldly phenomena of arising and ceasing, in its ultimate root the arising of the aggregate of form is merely the transformation of the seven great seeds, and the ceasing of the aggregate of form is likewise merely the transformation of the seven great seeds. From beginning to end it is all the functioning of the seven great seeds, and there is no real aggregate of form to speak of. By the same token, the four aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are also like this: they are all the seven great seeds ceaselessly transforming, and the four aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness have no real role in it at all.

Moreover, the functions and effects of the seven great seeds are precisely the functions of the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha uses the seven great seeds as raw material, splashing ink freely to conjure up the manifold world of the five aggregates. But no matter what, the appearances of the world are all empty; the dharmas of the five aggregates have never arisen and have never ceased. Nor can one speak of the five aggregates as defiled or pure, because the raw material is the pure seven great seeds, and the appearances of the dharmas of the five aggregates are empty. Since they are empty, whatever one says is conceptual proliferation (prapañca); thus the empty appearance of the dharmas of the five aggregates is also neither increasing nor decreasing—they have never arisen and never ceased, and have never changed. And the tathāgatagarbha, this supramundane dharma-appearance, is also an empty appearance; He does not possess any appearance found in the world, and therefore He too is neither arising nor ceasing, neither defiled nor pure (na saṃkleśo na vyavadānam), neither increasing nor decreasing.

Therefore it is said that within this emptiness-natured mind, this empty-appearance mind of the tathāgatagarbha, there are no dharmas at all: no aggregate of form, no aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind, no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharma, no eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, or mind consciousness, no ignorance. Nor is there any cessation of ignorance; there is no suffering, origination, cessation, or path, no twelve links of dependent arising, and even further, no wisdom and no attainment—yet all worldly dharmas, in the final analysis, are the dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, all attributes of the tathāgatagarbha.

To see appearances is already a mistake; to see appearances is the mind grasping at itself, causing the tathāgatagarbha, which is not illusory, to become an illusory dharma. "If one sees that all marks are no-marks, one sees the Tathāgata." If one sees that the five aggregates are not the appearance of the five aggregates, that there is no appearance of the five aggregates, then one has seen the Buddha Tathāgata—the tathāgatagarbha. Merely seeing appearances as false and illusory is still not a sufficient level; from the perspective of Yogācāra dharma, illusory dharmas are simply emptiness—there are no such things as illusory dharmas. But from the perspective of the one true dharma-realm, when the one is true, all is true, and there is no delusion: deluded dharmas are true dharmas. The illusory appearances are in fact the true dharma of the tathāgatagarbha; they are dharmas within the one true dharma-realm, all possessing the nature of tathāgatagarbha. Only such seeing of dharmas is ultimate. Having studied Yogācāra and applied Yogācāra, one will come to feel that everything one learned before is not ultimate, and that Yogācāra is the most ultimate Buddhadharma.