The Three Meanings of Tathāgatagarbha
This short chapter is the treatise's best-known passage, and the closest thing it offers to a definition of its central term. The Chinese word 藏 (zàng), translating the Sanskrit garbha, can mean a womb, a store, or a hidden treasury — and the treatise takes the term apart into three distinct senses at once: sentient beings enfolded within the Tathāgata's own wisdom, the Tathāgata himself concealed beneath layers of affliction, and the fruit of buddhahood already enfolding, in seed, every virtue it will one day display in full.
That Which Is Enfolded
復次如來藏義有三種應知。何者為三？一所攝藏、二隱覆藏、三能攝藏。一所攝名藏者，佛說約住自性如如，一切眾生是如來藏。言如者，有二義：一如如智、二如如境，並不倒故名如如。言來者，約從自性來，來至至得，是名如來。故如來性雖因名，應得果名。至得其體不二，但由清濁有異，在因時為違二空故起無明，而為煩惱所雜，故名染濁。雖未即顯，必當可現，故名應得。若至果時，與二空合，無復惑累，煩惱不染，說名為清。果已顯現，故名至得。
譬如水性體非清濁，但由穢不穢故，有清濁名。若泥滓濁亂故不澄清，雖不澄清而水清性不失，若方便澄渟即得清淨，故知淨不淨名由有穢無穢故得，非關水性自有淨穢應得至是。二種佛性亦復如是，同一真如無有異體，但違空理故起惑著，煩惱染亂故名為濁。若不違二空與如一相，則不起無明，煩惑不染，所以假號為清。
所言藏者，一切眾生悉在如來智內，故名為藏，以如如智稱如如境故。一切眾生決無有出如如境者，並為如來之所攝持，故名所藏眾生為如來藏。復次藏有三種：一顯正境無比，離如如境無別一境出此境故。二顯正行無比，離此智外無別勝智過此智故。三為現正果無比，無別一果過此果故。故曰無比。由此果能攝藏一切眾生故，說眾生為如來藏。
Next, the meaning of tathāgatagarbha is of three kinds, and should be understood. What are the three? First, that which is enfolded as garbha; second, that which is concealed as garbha; third, that which enfolds as garbha. As to the first: the Buddha teaches, with reference to the suchness abiding in itself, that all sentient beings are the tathāgatagarbha. The word "thus" has two senses: the wisdom that is thus, and the object that is thus — both being free from error, and so called "thusness." The word "come" refers to coming from this self-nature all the way to its full attainment — this is what is meant by "thus-come." Hence, though the term "tathāgata-nature" belongs, by name, to the cause, it properly names the fruit that is to be attained. In its essence, the state fully attained is not two different things — it is only that, depending on whether one speaks of the impure or the pure, there is a difference of naming. At the causal stage, because beings act against the twofold emptiness, ignorance arises, and the nature becomes mixed together with affliction — hence it is called defiled. Though not yet manifest, it is certain, in time, to become manifest — hence it is called "what is to be attained." When the fruit is reached, it unites with the twofold emptiness, is no longer entangled by delusion, and is no longer stained by affliction — hence it is called pure. Once the fruit has become manifest, it is called "fully attained."
It is like the nature of water, whose essence is neither clear nor turbid — it is only by virtue of being sullied or unsullied that the names "clear" and "turbid" arise. If it is muddied by silt and sediment, it is not clear; yet even when not clear, water's own nature of clarity is never lost — if, through the proper means, it is allowed to settle, purity is attained once more. Hence we know that the names "pure" and "impure" are given on account of the presence or absence of contamination, and have nothing to do with water itself somehow possessing, in its own nature, an inherent distinction between the purity to be attained and its opposite. The two aspects of buddha-nature are exactly the same: they share one and the same suchness, with no distinct essence at all — it is only because beings act against the principle of emptiness that delusive attachment arises, and, being mixed with affliction, is called "turbid." If one does not act against the twofold emptiness, and remains of a single mark with suchness, then ignorance does not arise, and, unstained by affliction, it is provisionally called "pure."
As for what is meant by "enfolded": all sentient beings dwell entirely within the Tathāgata's wisdom — hence it is called "enfolded," because the wisdom that is thus corresponds exactly to the object that is thus. Not a single sentient being ever stands outside the realm of thusness — every one is held and enfolded by the Tathāgata; hence sentient beings, thus enfolded, are called the tathāgatagarbha. There are, further, three senses in which this enfolding should be understood. First, it shows that the true object of realization is beyond compare, since apart from the realm of thusness there is no separate object beyond it. Second, it shows that the true practice is beyond compare, since apart from this wisdom there is no separate, superior wisdom beyond it. Third, it manifests that the true fruit is beyond compare, since there is no separate fruit beyond it. Hence it is called "beyond compare." And it is because this fruit is able to enfold all sentient beings within itself that sentient beings are said to be the tathāgatagarbha.
That Which Is Concealed
二隱覆為藏者，如來自隱不現，故名為藏。言如來者，有二義：一者現如不顛倒義，由妄想故名為顛倒，不妄想故名之為如。二者現常住義，此如性從住自性性來至至得，如體不變異，故是常義。如來性住道前時，為煩惱隱覆，眾生不見，故名為藏。
As to the second, concealed, called garbha: the Tathāgata is himself concealed and does not appear — hence it is called "concealed." The word "tathāgata" has two senses here as well: first, it manifests the sense of thusness free from inversion — since delusive thought is what constitutes "inversion," the absence of delusive thought is what is called "thus." Second, it manifests the sense of abiding permanence: this nature of thusness, from the stage of abiding in itself all the way to its full attainment, never changes or alters in its essence — hence it has the meaning of "permanence." While the tathāgata-nature abides at the stage prior to the path, it is concealed by affliction, and sentient beings do not see it — hence it is called "concealed."
That Which Enfolds
三能攝為藏者，謂果地一切過恒沙數功德，住如來應得性時，攝之已盡故。若至果時方言得性者，此性便是無常。何以故？非始得故。故知本有，是故言常。
As to the third, enfolding, called garbha: this means that every one of the countless virtues of the fruition-stage, beyond the sands of the Ganges, are already, in their entirety, enfolded within the tathāgata-nature even while it still stands at the stage of what is to be attained. If one were to say that this nature is attained only upon reaching the fruit, then this nature would have to be impermanent. Why? Because it would not be something that was there from the very start. Hence we know it is inherently, originally existent — and for this reason it is called permanent.
The three senses of garbha given here are not three competing definitions to choose among — they are three different vantage points on a single situation, and the treatise clearly intends all three to be held together. From the standpoint of sentient beings, we are the ones enfolded — held within the Tathāgata's wisdom the way the object of a cognition is held within the cognition that knows it, never once outside it, however unaware of this we may be. From the standpoint of the Tathāgata, it is he who is concealed — not absent, but hidden beneath layers of affliction we have not yet cleared away, the way sediment hides the clarity a body of water never actually lost. And from the standpoint of the fruit itself, buddhahood is what enfolds — already, right now, containing every virtue it will ever display, the way a seed is said to already contain the tree. The water analogy in the first section is doing more work than it might first appear: it is not just explaining that defilement is removable, but explaining why the language of "purification" never implies that something new gets added at the end. What is uncovered at buddhahood was never, in the treatise's own careful accounting, absent to begin with.
Part 8 Complete
This closes the "Part Revealing the Essence" and Fascicle Two's first three chapters — the three causes, the three natures, and now the three meanings of tathāgatagarbha. Fascicle Two continues in Part 9 with the opening of the treatise's fourth and longest major division, the "Part Distinguishing the Marks" (辯相分), beginning with the first of ten marks of buddha-nature: its self-essence mark, unfolded through a set of similes — as-you-wish jewels, the equal emptiness shared by clay, silver, and gold vessels, and the quality of smoothness itself — that describe what buddha-nature is like from the inside.
Continue to Part 9 — The Self-Essence Mark →