What Are the Conditioned and the Unconditioned?

To act is to have purpose, to have aims, to have demands, to seek attainment.

Conditioned phenomena involve seeking, demands, contrivance, attainment, purposeful intent, mental activities, fabrication, selfhood, and the four marks. Unconditioned phenomena are the opposite, devoid of these mental states.

A mind free from seeking is unconditioned; a mind free from attachment to attainment is unconditioned; a mind devoid of mental activities regarding the three realms is unconditioned; dharmas not subject to birth are unconditioned; a mind of boundless, limitless measure is unconditioned; a mind without afflictions is unconditioned. A mind unattached to the dharmas of the three realms is unconditioned; a mind that exists without any conditions is unconditioned; a mind disinclined toward contrivance is unconditioned; a mind without selfhood is unconditioned; a mind without the four marks is unconditioned.

The Tathāgatagarbha, while unconditioned, selflessly serves sentient beings. While operating all dharmas of the three realms, its essence remains unconditioned. Within the unconditioned, there is conditioned function; within the conditioned, there is unconditioned essence. Only when the seventh consciousness is cultivated to a certain level does it gradually transform from conditioned nature to unconditioned nature. While abiding in conditioned phenomena, its ground is unconditioned, gradually aligning with the Tathāgatagarbha. When it becomes completely unconditioned and fully aligned, Buddhahood is attained.

Only the unconditioned mind of the Tathāgatagarbha can exist apart from all dharmas. The unconditioned state of the seventh consciousness cannot exist apart from the dharmas of the three realms, nor can it exist apart from the unconditioned Tathāgatagarbha. This unconditioned dharma of the Tathāgatagarbha can exist alone, completely separate from the conditioned phenomena of the three realms — this is the state of Nirvana without remainder. Within Nirvana without remainder, the Tathāgatagarbha is quiescent and unconditioned, not fabricating even a single dharma, utterly pure and supremely immaculate. Therefore, even when apart from conditioned dharmas, the unconditioned dharma of the Tathāgatagarbha still exists. Hence, the Patriarch said: "Before heaven and earth existed, It was, shapeless and profoundly still."