Twenty-five: Seeds of Light
“Subhūti, what do you think? You should not claim that the Tathāgata thinks ‘I will save sentient beings.’ Subhūti, do not think such a thing. Why? There are in fact no sentient beings for the Tathāgata to save. If there were sentient beings for the Tathāgata to save, it would mean that the Tathāgata holds the notions of an ego-self, person, sentient being, and life span. Subhūti, when the Tathāgata says ‘I,’ there is actually no ‘ I.’ Yet immature beings take this to be an I. Subhūti, as far as immature beings are concerned, the Tathāgata says that they are not immature beings.”
The immature, stupefied-foolish ones (puthujjana) are those who embrace ideations of separate-existence and an ego-soul (Individual “I”). Blinded by the Five Skandhas, they are oblivious to the bodhi-seed that is within. Being blinded to their true-essential-Self, the Buddha says that they are immature; yet, in their true-potentiality that lays in recognition of their own hidden Buddha-nature, the Buddha implies that they are really not immature-beings. When recognition of the Absolute-Self dawns, something “drops like scales from eyes-long-blind” and the way is open for the Buddha-seed (gotra) to develop and into a Bodhichild enroute to Bodhisattvahood; hence, an immature sentient being awakens into a mature bodhi-being. In this sense, there truly are no “sentient-beings” to be saved, but only children of the Buddha who are empowered through the salvific grace of the Tathagatas to free their own potential seed of Unborn Light.