The Differences Among the Various Unconditioned Dharmas (asaṃskṛta-dharma)

Question: The Diamond Sutra says that all sages and saints differ by means of the unconditioned dharma. Does this mean the differences arise from the varying degrees of realization of the tathāgatagarbha dharma? That is, differing degrees of realization of emptiness (śūnyatā)?

Answer: Sages and saints include the śrāvaka arhats and the pratyekabuddhas, as well as bodhisattvas and Buddhas—these are called the four noble ones (śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, buddha). Among them, those of the Small Vehicle at the first and second fruits are sages; those who have awakened to the true mind, from that point until before the first bhūmi, are sages. The first two kinds—śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas—are of Small Vehicle spiritual faculties; they do not walk the Mahāyāna path to buddhahood, do not investigate the Mahāyāna tathāgatagarbha dharma, and have not realized the tathāgatagarbha. Only Mahāyāna bodhisattvas can investigate the tathāgatagarbha and realize it. This is the difference between Mahāyāna bodhisattvas and the Small Vehicle śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas.

The unconditioned dharma realized by the Buddha is the most ultimate and thoroughgoing: not only is self empty, dharmas are also empty; the grasping at self and grasping at dharmas are all completely severed, the mind is utterly empty, and even the tathāgatagarbha dharma is regarded as empty and not clung to. A bodhisattva who has realized the Mahāyāna tathāgatagarbha has realized this supramundane unconditioned dharma of the tathāgatagarbha; thereafter, the mind of the seven consciousnesses will also become increasingly unconditioned—like the tathāgatagarbha, amid the activities of conditioned dharmas, the mental conduct remains unconditioned, being both conditioned and unconditioned. The Small Vehicle śrāvaka, on the other hand, has realized the emptiness of self—the non-self of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha)—which is the Small Vehicle's unconditioned dharma. The pratyekabuddha has realized the dharma of dependent arising through the twelve links of dependent origination: all dharmas arise from causes and conditions, and therefore are empty; this too is a kind of unconditioned dharma. Afterward, the minds of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas must cease all activity, and the seven consciousnesses must also become unconditioned. But this unconditioned nature differs from that of the tathāgatagarbha: the tathāgatagarbha is unconditioned amid the mental conduct that creates all conditioned dharmas—an unconditionedness that does not abandon the conditioned—whereas the unconditionedness of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas is one that abandons the conditioned altogether, refusing even the most meaningful great undertaking of becoming a Buddha and delivering sentient beings. The Buddha called this the unconditionedness of scorched sprouts and rotten seeds.

The unconditioned dharma realized by śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas is a kind of false appearance; it exists only by relying on the truly unconditioned tathāgatagarbha, and is neither ultimate nor real. They still take the marks of dharmas as truly existent, take the three realms and the six paths as truly existent dharmas, and take the feeling of suffering as truly existent. They do not know that all of these are illusorily manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, that in substance they do not exist, and that all are the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, the level of the unconditioned dharma they realize is very low. Although bodhisattvas have realized the unconditioned dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, and their level is higher than that of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, because their degree of cultivation is insufficient and they have not completely taken refuge in the tathāgatagarbha, their mental conduct is not yet completely empty and unconditioned; this too is not ultimate. Only the Buddha possesses the ultimate and thoroughgoing unconditionedness.

Some people say that śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas have also realized the tathāgatagarbha. If that were so, then śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas would also be bodhisattvas, no different from bodhisattvas: their resolve should be the same, their power of vow should be the same, and they should all continue to cultivate the tathāgatagarbha dharma in depth, walking the bodhisattva path, benefiting themselves and benefiting others. Yet their conduct contradicts the bodhisattva path: they have not brought forth the mind of compassion, they fear the suffering of the three realms, they fear their own saṃsāra, they are unwilling to continue cultivating, unwilling to save and deliver sentient beings, and they choose to enter nirvāṇa—entirely unlike the mental conduct of a bodhisattva.

If śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas had also realized the tathāgatagarbha, then they should know how the tathāgatagarbha operates within the body of the five aggregates, how it gives birth to the body of the five aggregates and sustains it. They should not fear conditioned dharmas and the suffering of the three realms and choose to enter nirvāṇa. Yet they are completely ignorant of the tathāgatagarbha dharma, not knowing that the suffering of the five aggregates is also illusorily manifested, and need not be feared or avoided. To realize the tathāgatagarbha, one should be able to observe the tathāgatagarbha directly in the present. If one merely hears the name "tathāgatagarbha" and believes that it exists, one is still a hundred thousand miles away from realization. Therefore, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas absolutely have not realized the unconditioned dharma of the tathāgatagarbha; rather, they have realized the Small Vehicle unconditioned dharmas of the non-self of the five aggregates and the twelve links of dependent origination. Because the unconditioned dharmas they realize differ, the sages and saints have differences of great and small, high and low. Bodhisattvas, too, because of differing degrees of realization of the tathāgatagarbha, have differences in wisdom and in the levels of attainment.

Non-Buddhists also have unconditioned dharmas. When one cultivates to the fourth dhyāna, this is the unconditionedness of immovability: body and mind are both unmoving, with no breathing, no pulse, no heartbeat, no discrimination, no mental thought. When one cultivates to the concentration of no-perception, the mind consciousness ceases, and the mind is even more unconditioned. When one cultivates to the concentration of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, the mind consciousness extinguishes the two mental factors of feeling and perception—this is called the unconditionedness of the cessation of feeling and perception. Not acting, not doing, not moving—this is the unconditionedness of conditioned, arising-and-ceasing dharmas.