What Kind of Person Can Follow Conditions?

If ordinary beings follow conditions, then every day, every year, every life, every existence—whatever conditions are most prevalent—where can following conditions lead them? "Following conditions yet unchanging, unchanging yet following conditions"—only the eighth consciousness can accomplish this completely. Even pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas (pūrvabhūmika bodhisattvas) cannot do it; it is impossible for them to remain unchanged. Post-bhūmi bodhisattvas, before the eighth bhūmi, also cannot accomplish it completely. As long as the minds of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses are still subject to perfuming and defilement, it is impossible to remain unchanged while following conditions. No matter what conditions the Buddha follows, His mind does not change, because the sixth and seventh consciousnesses are no longer subject to perfuming and defilement.

The meditative concentration of the non-Buddhists is that excellent—entering samādhi for eighty thousand great kalpas, with afflictions all subdued—yet because they have not eradicated the afflictions, they are born in later lives in the desire realm, and still follow conditions to create karmic actions of greed, hatred, and delusion, once again transmigrating through evil karma and suffering. The arhat, fearing to be perfumed and defiled by worldly conditions of the three realms, avoids the three realms and enters Nirvāṇa without remainder (Anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). The mind of an ordinary being, once it follows conditions, will certainly change—it is extremely unreliable. Whoever places all hope in reliance upon an ordinary being will surely regret it.