Tathāgatagarbha Possesses Both Unconditioned and Conditioned Natures

Unconditioned dharmas are divided into two kinds: one refers to the tathāgatagarbha's original unconditioned nature, and the other refers to the unconditioned mind-nature that the deluded minds of the seven consciousnesses cultivate and develop through practice. Among the eight consciousnesses, only the tathāgatagarbha is a mind that is unconditioned from the very beginning, and thus belongs to unconditioned dharmas. Because He is a mind of emptiness (śūnyatā), He has no mind to fabricate any dharma-mark, no mind to create any karmic action; when conditions are not complete, He neither gives rise to nor sustains any dharma. The tathāgatagarbha always accords with conditions without changing, and remains unchanged while according with conditions. One characteristic of His unconditioned nature is according with conditions—drifting along with the current, without any self-assertion; when there is no condition, or when conditions are incomplete, He does not force matters. The tathāgatagarbha also has no nature of self and does not make decisions on His own; moreover, the mind of the tathāgatagarbha is empty and unconditioned, without signs and without wishes, and so the tathāgatagarbha is non-active. Therefore it is said that the tathāgatagarbha is not the consciousness that takes charge. Only with a self does one need to take charge, even taking oneself as the master; the tathāgatagarbha is without self, so He has no intention to dominate any dharma.

The tathāgatagarbha possesses both unconditioned nature and conditioned nature. The unconditioned nature of the tathāgatagarbha means that the intrinsic nature of His own mind is non-active: toward all dharmas He acts without deliberate mind, without any thought of actively wanting to fabricate anything, and He takes charge of nothing among all dharmas. Although the tathāgatagarbha does engage in fabrication and has mental activity when giving rise to the myriad dharmas, His mind-nature remains unconditioned—He does not know what He is fabricating, knows nothing at all about the dharmas of sense objects, and has no wish to know them, yet He can accord with conditions to give rise to all dharmas. Although He has produced countless worldly dharmas, His mind remains empty, without deliberate mind, without wishes, without arising or ceasing, without any capacity to take charge, and without any nature of self. The tathāgatagarbha is without the nature of self; what is without self is unconditioned—not for itself, not for any purpose, without any private benefit. If the tathāgatagarbha were not an unconditioned dharma, then there would be no unconditioned dharma whatsoever in either the worldly or the world-transcending realm; no matter how unconditioned the seven consciousnesses might become, they could never be as unconditioned as the tathāgatagarbha—even the seven consciousnesses at the Buddha-stage are like this.

If a mind without self still belonged to conditioned dharmas, that would be a grave contradiction. If the tathāgatagarbha were purely a conditioned dharma, He would certainly be subject to arising and ceasing. In what way is the tathāgatagarbha conditioned? Producing worldly dharmas is being conditioned, yet within that conditioned activity He is unconditioned. If the tathāgatagarbha were purely conditioned, what would the seven consciousnesses learn from Him? How could the seven consciousnesses draw near to the tathāgatagarbha and learn from Him so as to transform their own mind-nature? How could the seven consciousnesses face all sense objects while remaining in suchness, unmoved? How could the seven consciousnesses attain complete non-action and accomplish the Buddha-way? If the tathāgatagarbha were purely a conditioned dharma, then there would be no need for us to investigate Chan and realize the tathāgatagarbha; after enlightenment we would be unable to rely upon the transformation of the basis as tathāgatagarbha in His pure and unconditioned nature, and the seven consciousnesses would never be able to transform their mind-nature. In that case, whether enlightened or not, one could never become a Buddha.