The Tathāgatagarbha Has Both Unconditioned and Conditioned Natures.

Unconditioned dharmas are divided into two kinds: one refers to the tathāgatagarbha's inherent unconditioned nature; the other refers to the unconditioned mental nature that the deluded minds of the seven consciousnesses cultivate through practice, acquired later through cultivation. Among the eight consciousnesses, only the tathāgatagarbha is a mind that is unconditioned from the very beginning, and thus belongs to the unconditioned dharmas. Because He is a mind of emptiness (śūnyatā), He has no intention to create any dharma-marks, no intention to create any karmic actions; when conditions are not complete, He also does not bring forth or sustain any dharma. The tathāgatagarbha always accords with conditions without changing, and remains unchanged while according with conditions. One characteristic of His unconditionedness is according with conditions—drifting along with the current, having no self-assertion; when there are no conditions, or when conditions are incomplete, He does not force matters. The tathāgatagarbha also has no self-nature and does not make decisions on His own; the tathāgatagarbha is also a mind empty and unconditioned, without marks and without aspiration, 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 volition to direct any dharma.

The tathāgatagarbha possesses both unconditioned nature and conditioned nature. The unconditioned nature of the tathāgatagarbha means that His intrinsic mind-nature does nothing: toward all dharmas He acts without intention, without any mental thought of actively wanting to create any dharma, and He takes no charge of any dharma. Although when the tathāgatagarbha brings forth the myriad dharmas there is creating and mental activity, His mind-nature remains unconditioned—He does not know what He is creating, knows nothing whatsoever about the objects of the realms, does not wish to know them, and yet can accord with conditions to bring forth all dharmas. Although He has produced countless worldly dharmas, His mind remains empty, without intention, without aspiration, without arising or ceasing, without any capacity to take charge, and without self-nature. The tathāgatagarbha is without self-nature; what is without self is unconditioned—not acting for a self, not for any purpose, without self-interest. If the tathāgatagarbha were not an unconditioned dharma, then there would be no unconditioned dharma at all in either the mundane or the supramundane world; no matter how unconditioned the seven consciousnesses might be, they could not match the unconditionedness of the tathāgatagarbha—even the seven consciousnesses at the Buddha-stage are no exception.

If a mind without self still belonged to the conditioned dharmas, that would be a serious contradiction. If the tathāgatagarbha were purely a conditioned dharma, He would certainly be subject to arising and ceasing. How, then, is the tathāgatagarbha conditioned? Producing worldly dharmas is being conditioned, yet within that conditionedness there is unconditionedness. If the tathāgatagarbha were purely conditioned, what would the seven consciousnesses learn from the tathāgatagarbha? 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 realms of experience and remain unmoved in suchness (tathatā-acalita)? How could the seven consciousnesses achieve complete unconditionedness and accomplish the Buddha-way? If the tathāgatagarbha were a purely conditioned dharma, then there would be no need for us to investigate Chan and realize the tathāgatagarbha; after enlightenment we would be unable to achieve the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti) into the tathāgatagarbha's pure unconditioned nature, and the seven consciousnesses would never be able to transform their mind-nature—thus, whether enlightened or not, one could never become a Buddha.