Four factors were developed in the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra and the Pu tseng pu chien ching related to living beings and the Tathāgatagarbha:

1. The ignorance of living beings obfuscates the knowledge of Tathāgatagarbha.
2. The nature of living beings is identical to that of the Buddha.
3. The ordinary monk also cannot understand the Tathāgatagarbha because he misinterprets both the nature of Emptiness and of Nirvāṇa.
4. The Bodhisattva is the essential means by which living beings are instructed in the profound teaching of the Tathāgatagarbha.

These four factors approximate the first half of the text of the Śrimālādevi Sūtra in which the Bodhisattva, in his relationship with the true Dharma, is able to assist and convert all suffering and ignorant beings. …

The five factors which are an analysis of the Tathāgatagarbha per se, developed in the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra and Pu tseng pu chien ching and expanded in the Śrimālādevi Sūtra are the following:

1. The nature and wisdom of the Tathāgata are the Tathāgatagarbha.
2. The Dharma Body extrinsically covered by defilement is the Tathāgatagarbha.
3. The merits and qualities of the Buddha which are complete in the Tathāgatagarbha are not different from, severed from, nor separate from the nature of the Dharma.
4. The Tathāgatagarbha is neither produced nor destroyed.
5. The Tathāgatagarbha is permanent, eternal, pure, and immutable.

These five factors approximate the last half of the text in which the Tathāgatagarbha is described both from the dimension of the supreme and absolute knowledge of the Buddha and from the phenomenal and conventional level of living beings who must be guided by the Boddhisattva.