The Tathāgatagarbha Mind is not a Dharma of the Three Realms

 

"All sufferings and miseries arise from mundane pleasures. Various evils, such as hell, hungry ghosts, animals, the Yama King, anger, fighting, and mutual defamation, are caused by attachment to the pleasures brought about by the objects of the five desires." The Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, Vol. 23 

【世間之樂無非是苦，眾魔境界，愚人所貪，諸佛所訶，一切苦患因之而起。地獄、餓鬼及以畜生、閻羅王處，忿恚鬪訟，更相毀辱，如是諸惡，皆因貪著五欲所致。耽著五欲，遠離諸佛，障礙生天，何況得于阿耨多羅三藐三菩提！】

《大方廣佛華嚴經》卷23

Remarks:

The Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra Vol. 23 says, “Mundane pleasures are nothing but sufferings and states of demons craved by the ignorant and scorned by the Buddha. All sufferings and miseries arise from mundane pleasures. Various evils, such as hell, hungry ghosts, animals, the Yama King, anger, fighting, and mutual defamation, are caused by attachment to the pleasures brought about by the objects of the five desires. This attachment leads to estrangement from the Buddha and hinders our rebirth into the deva realms, let alone attaining the unexcelled complete perfect Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi.”

According to the Buddha, we are caught up in the desire realm with myriad kinds of suffering due to our ignorance. Without a proper understanding that phenomena of the mundane world and the five-aggregate self are all impermanent, we will mistake them as things to be savored, and we will become attached to them. We will be unable to understand that the essence of all phenomena is impermanent and constantly changing without exception. As a result, we crave our bodies, minds, power, wealth, relatives, etc. This leads to attachment, which in turn leads to suffering. Our ignorance makes us crave worldly things, which inflicts suffering on us that we can never transcend. Thus, our five-aggregate self is fettering us.

We will never be able to attain liberation or be reborn into the form or formless realm if we continue to be attached to the objects of the five desires. We cannot even exit the cyclic transmigration of birth and death in the three realms, let alone attain the Buddhahood Path. All Buddhists must know that apart from the various arising and ceasing dharmas in the phenomenal world, there is one Dharma that is never born and will never cease to exist and is eternally indestructible: the tathagatagarbha mind, which is not a dharma of the three realms. In fact, it is the Mind stated in the Heart Sutra. Therefore, awakening to the True Mind through contemplative Chan and realizing the ultimate reality of life in the universe, which gives rise to all dharmas, is crucial.

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