Are the Defiled Seeds Transformed or Eradicated?

The seeds of karmic actions arise, persist, change, and cease; they cannot transform into one another. Although it is said that good and evil wax and wane, the seeds of wholesome and unwholesome karma are likewise incapable of mutual transformation. Defiled seeds are the karmic seeds left behind by defiled karmic actions performed with a defiled mind. When these seeds ripen and bear fruit, sentient beings suffer retribution for their evil deeds. Once the retribution is exhausted, the seeds are extinguished. If one repents defiled actions, the mind becomes purified, and the defiled seeds will also be eliminated. In future lives, one will either not suffer evil retribution or suffer less of it. Therefore, defiled seeds are extinguished, not transformed. If ignorance gradually diminishes, the mind will progressively become purer, wisdom will gradually increase, and defiled seeds will be eliminated more and more until they are completely extinguished. When the mind is ultimately and perfectly purified without residue, Buddhahood is attained. As ignorance grows increasingly faint and wisdom increasingly abundant, the phenomena of the mind being defiled also diminish. Wholesome actions of purity will then become more and more numerous, until finally, only pure karma and pure seeds remain, with no defiled karma or defiled seeds.

Some say the Tathagatagarbha has both defilement and purity, hence the doctrine of the transformation of consciousness into wisdom. But actually, the essence of the Tathagatagarbha is pure consciousness; it is only because it contains the defiled karmic seeds produced by the seven consciousnesses that the Tathagatagarbha is said to be neither pure nor impure. If the Tathagatagarbha did not collect and store the defiled karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses, it would be the pure, undefiled consciousness. If the Tathagatagarbha were defiled, it would possess afflictions and defiled karma. However, the Tathagatagarbha itself does not create any wholesome karma, unwholesome karma, or neutral karma. It is the seven consciousnesses that possess afflictions and defilement and can create wholesome and unwholesome karma. Therefore, when the seven consciousnesses act under affliction, the unwholesome karma they create is defiled karma. After the Tathagatagarbha collects and stores the wholesome and unwholesome karma created by the seven consciousnesses, it then contains the seeds of defiled karma.