The Tathāgatagarbha as the Storehouse-Consciousness

The commentators explain the phrase "cause of both good and evil" through a careful account of how a single reality yields two entirely different outcomes depending on which condition it follows: "如來謂理性如來，現前一念所具名之為藏...根塵一念心起，隨染淨緣，染即無明，隨無明染緣則為九界生死；淨即教行，隨教行淨緣則為四種道滅...故曰『是善不善因』" — "'Tathāgata' here means the Tathāgata as principle-nature; what is present within a single thought is called the 'garbha,' the womb or store. When a single thought arises from faculty and object, it follows either a defiled or a pure condition: the defiled condition is ignorance, and following the defiled condition of ignorance produces the birth-and-death of the nine [unenlightened] realms; the pure condition is teaching and practice, and following the pure condition of teaching and practice produces the four kinds of cessation on the path... this is why it says [the tathāgatagarbha] is 'the cause of both what is wholesome and what is unwholesome.'" The tathāgatagarbha itself never changes; only the condition it happens to follow determines whether what arises from it is saṃsāra or the path to its cessation.

On why the ocean-wave image is chosen specifically for the transition from tathāgatagarbha to storehouse-consciousness, the commentators trace the sequence carefully: "彼外道以不覺故，妄計執著造作，由無始惡習所熏，名為識藏。轉生七識，無明住地。言無明，起之始也，從此根本乃生枝末無明，故喻之曰『如海浪身常生不斷』" — "the outsiders, being unaware, falsely cling to the notion of a maker; [the tathāgatagarbha,] habituated by beginningless evil habituation, comes to be called the storehouse-consciousness, which in turn gives rise to the seven consciousnesses and the abode of fundamental ignorance. 'Ignorance' here names the very beginning of arising — from this root, branch-and-leaf ignorance then arises, which is why it is likened to 'the very body of the ocean's waves, ceaselessly arising without interruption.'" And the commentators are careful to note that this ceaseless arising belongs only to the seven active consciousnesses, never to the tathāgatagarbha itself: "若能一念回光，能隨淨緣，則離無常之過、二我之執，自性清淨，所謂性德如來則究顯矣" — "should a single thought turn its own light back upon itself and follow the pure condition instead, one is thereby apart from the fault of impermanence and the grasping at a twofold self, one's own-nature being pure — and it is precisely this that is meant by the Tathāgata as inherent virtue being ultimately made manifest." The waves rise and fall without end, but the ocean beneath them is never itself agitated.

The commentators are precise about what the meditator in cessation-attainment has and has not actually accomplished: "善真諦解脫等，即聲聞所修，於此滅定作解脫想，非究竟滅也...而實未捨未轉如來藏中藏識之名，若無藏識，七識則滅。由不轉不滅，所以七識與六識為因及攀緣而生" — "'well accomplished in the liberation of true reality' and the rest describes what the śrāvaka cultivates: within this cessation-absorption he forms the notion of having attained liberation, though this is not ultimate cessation at all... in truth, he has neither relinquished nor transformed the name 'storehouse-consciousness' within the tathāgatagarbha; were there no storehouse-consciousness, the seven [active] consciousnesses would themselves cease. Because it is neither transformed nor ceased, the seven consciousnesses continue to arise through the sixth consciousness serving as their cause and supporting condition." The śrāvaka's absorption stills the surface activity of mind, but the storehouse-consciousness that could give rise to it all again is never actually uprooted — which is exactly why this cessation, however blissful, is not the ultimate liberation a bodhisattva seeks.

On why the eighth ground specifically is named "immovability," the commentators tie it to the ten samādhis granted there by the buddhas' own sustaining power: "由前悟入得預初地，次第增進，位深德著，不為外道邪見所動，至第八不動地。於此得十種三昧樂門，為諸佛三昧力所持...獲自證智，豈與凡小所修行同" — "having first awakened and entered the first ground, [the bodhisattva] advances in graduated succession; as his stage deepens and his virtue becomes manifest, he is no longer moved by any outsider's mistaken view, arriving at the eighth, immovable ground. Here he attains the bliss of the ten gateways of samādhi, sustained by the power of every buddha's own samādhi... having attained self-realized wisdom, how could this be the same as anything practiced by the ordinary person or the lesser vehicles?" The name "immovable" describes exactly the stability this passage has been building toward since Part 40's account of the eighth ground being sustained against the pull of premature nirvāṇa — here, that same sustaining power is shown to rest on having genuinely seen the tathāgatagarbha itself, not merely stilled its surface activity.

The commentators explain what "purifying the name" actually means, since the tathāgatagarbha itself needs no purification: "如來之藏本無可淨，淨其垢者耳。識藏以名言者，由迷如來藏轉成妄識，無有別體，故但有名。若無識藏之名，則轉妄識為如來藏也" — "the tathāgatagarbha itself has, in truth, nothing that could be purified; it is only its defilement that is purified. As for calling it by the name 'storehouse-consciousness': this is because, through delusion about the tathāgatagarbha, it turns into a deluded consciousness that has no separate substance of its own apart from the tathāgatagarbha — hence it is a matter of name alone. Were there no name 'storehouse-consciousness' at all, the very deluded consciousness would itself simply be turned back into the tathāgatagarbha." The tathāgatagarbha and the storehouse-consciousness are never two different things — 'storehouse-consciousness' is simply what the very same reality is called for as long as delusion still covers it, and the whole of practice is nothing but removing that covering, never manufacturing a new purity that was not already there.

On the āmalaka-fruit image, the commentators cite the alternate translation directly for its precision: "《入楞伽》云：『此如來藏識藏本性清淨，客塵所染而為不淨。一切二乘及諸外道臆度起見，不能現證。如來於此分明現見，如觀掌中菴摩勒果。』" — "the Śikṣānanda translation says: 'this tathāgatagarbha as storehouse-consciousness is, in its fundamental nature, pure — it is adventitious defilement that renders it impure. Every one of the two lesser vehicles and every outsider can only speculate and form views about it, never directly verifying it themselves. The Tathāgata, however, sees this with perfect clarity, the way one views an āmalaka fruit held in the palm of one's own hand.'" And on why Queen Śrīmālā's teaching is invoked here by name rather than left implicit, the commentators simply note: "如來之說本不假證，但於彼經已曾廣明，故茲略說得以指之" — "the Tathāgata's own teaching requires no external verification to begin with; it is simply that this same truth had already been explained at length in that other scripture [the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra], and so it is only briefly pointed to here." The Buddha is not borrowing authority from elsewhere — he is showing that the very same self-realized truth, taught to a different audience under a different teacher's name, was always one and the same teaching.

The commentators tie the closing performer image directly back to the whole passage's teaching, reading it as a compact restatement rather than a fresh illustration: "頌上如來藏與七識俱，乃至由自相共相二種攝取，則有陰、界、入生，此乃隨妄緣者。若能反妄見如來藏，則遠離生死矣" — "this verse restates how the tathāgatagarbha arises together with the seven consciousnesses, and how, through the twofold grasping of particular and shared marks, the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields come to arise — this is what happens when one follows the false condition. Should one be able to turn back from falseness and see the tathāgatagarbha directly, one is thereby far removed from birth-and-death." And on the final image itself: "心謂如來藏心，隨緣變造，如伎兒之化現。意即意根，復起意識，識起善惡，如和伎者。五識取塵意識同起，是為伴侶。妄想分別如觀伎人也" — "'mind' here means the tathāgatagarbha-mind, transforming and constructing according to conditions, like a performer's own transformations. 'Will' is the mental faculty, which in turn gives rise to consciousness; consciousness gives rise to good and evil, like the one who directs the performance. The five sense-consciousnesses grasp their objects, arising together with mental consciousness, and are thus its companions. False discrimination is like the audience watching the performance." The entire elaborate teaching of this passage — tathāgatagarbha, storehouse-consciousness, the seven active consciousnesses, beginningless habituation — is compressed, in the verse's final image, into a single theater: one performer, one director, a troupe of companions, and an audience of false thought watching a show it mistakes for reality.