Impermanence

Sariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they are neither born nor destroyed,
neither pure nor impure
neither increasing nor decreasing.


These phrases explain the Mahayana understanding of emptiness. "All dharmas” refers to dharmas of form and dharms of mind. The Sutra refers here to three dualistic pairs—born and destroyed, impure and pure, and increasing and decreasing—to illustrate the meaning of emptiness. In fact, the Platform Sutra speaks of thirty-six dualistic pairs, but these three pairs serve to represent all such dualisms.