Why Are All Dharmas Empty in Nature?

Original Heart Sutra Text: Shariputra, form is not different from emptiness; emptiness is not different from form. Form is precisely emptiness; emptiness is precisely form. Sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness are also like this. Shariputra, all dharmas are empty in nature: neither arising nor ceasing, neither defiled nor pure, neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, perception, volition, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas; no realm of the eyes, up to and including no realm of mind-consciousness. There is no ignorance, nor is there cessation of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death, nor is there cessation of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulation, no cessation, no path. There is no wisdom and no attainment.

Explanation: Why does the Heart Sutra contain all these "no's"? How can this be understood through the lens of Consciousness-Only? If we explain this passage using the principle of the seven fundamental seeds from Consciousness-Only, it becomes easier to comprehend. The five aggregates—form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness—are generated from the seven fundamental seeds within the Tathagatagarbha. From the perspective of conventional phenomena, it appears as if the five aggregates and their functions exist, but in essence, they are all the seven fundamental seeds of the Tathagatagarbha and their functions; thus, they are all functions of the Tathagatagarbha. Therefore, the conventional appearances of the five aggregates are actually illusory, empty, and fundamentally non-existent. Thus, while the form aggregate appears conventionally to have phenomena of arising and ceasing, fundamentally, the arising of the form aggregate is a transformation of the seven fundamental seeds, and its cessation is still a transformation of the seven fundamental seeds—from beginning to end, it is all the functional activity of the seven fundamental seeds, with no real form aggregate to speak of. Similarly, the other four aggregates—sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness—are also like this; they are all nothing but the ceaseless transformations of the seven fundamental seeds, with no actual existence of the four aggregates themselves.

The functional activity of the seven fundamental seeds is the functional activity of the Tathagatagarbha. The Tathagatagarbha uses the seven fundamental seeds as its substance, freely manifesting and transforming to create the diverse phenomena of the five-aggregate world. Yet, no matter what, the appearances of the world are empty. The five aggregates have never arisen nor ceased; they cannot be spoken of as defiled or pure because their fundamental substance is the pure seven fundamental seeds, and the appearances of the five aggregates are empty. Since they are empty, any discussion about them is mere conceptual elaboration. Thus, the empty nature of the five aggregates neither increases nor decreases; they have never been born, never perished, and never changed. The Tathagatagarbha, as a supramundane dharma appearance, is also of empty nature. It possesses none of the characteristics of the mundane world; therefore, it too is neither born nor destroyed, neither defiled nor pure, neither increasing nor decreasing.

Hence, within the Tathagatagarbha—this mind of emptiness, this mind of empty appearance—there are no dharmas: no form aggregate, no sensation, perception, volition, or consciousness aggregates; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas; no eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, or mind-consciousness; no ignorance. There is also no cessation of ignorance, no suffering, accumulation, cessation, or path, no twelve links of dependent origination, and ultimately, no wisdom and no attainment. Yet, all conventional dharmas are, in their ultimate nature, the dharmas of the Tathagatagarbha; they are all attributes of the Tathagatagarbha.

To perceive appearances is erroneous; to perceive appearances is the mind grasping at the mind, causing the inherently non-illusory Tathagatagarbha to become an illusory dharma. "To see all appearances as non-appearances is to see the Tathagata." If one sees the five aggregates not as the appearances of the five aggregates, but without the appearances of the five aggregates, then one perceives the Tathagata Buddha—the Tathagatagarbha. Merely recognizing appearances as illusory is not sufficient. From the perspective of Consciousness-Only dharma, illusory dharmas are emptiness; there are no illusory dharmas. However, from the perspective of the One True Dharma Realm, the one true is all true; there is no falsehood. False dharmas are true dharmas; illusory appearances are none other than the true dharma—the Tathagatagarbha. They are dharmas within the One True Dharma Realm, all possessing the nature of Tathagatagarbha. Only by perceiving dharmas in this way is it ultimate. Studying and applying Consciousness-Only, one realizes that previous learnings were incomplete; Consciousness-Only is the most profound Dharma.