What Are the Conditioned and the Unconditioned?

To act is for the sake of, is purpose, is requirement, is seeking.

Conditioned action is to have seeking, to have demands, to have fabrication, to have attainment, to have pursuits, to have purpose, to have mental formations, to have fabrication, to have self, to have the four characteristics. Unconditioned is the absence of these mental states, the opposite of conditioned.

A mind free from seeking is unconditioned. A mind free from attainment is unconditioned. A mind without mental formations toward the threefold world is unconditioned. Phenomena not produced are unconditioned. A mind of boundless, limitless vastness is unconditioned. A mind free from afflictions is unconditioned. A mind that does not need the phenomena of the threefold world is unconditioned. A mind that can exist without any conditions is unconditioned. A mind that does not wish to fabricate is unconditioned. A mind without self is unconditioned. A mind without the four characteristics is unconditioned.

Within the unconditioned, the Tathagatagarbha selflessly serves sentient beings. While operating all phenomena of the threefold world, its essence remains unconditioned. Within the unconditioned there is conditioned; within the conditioned there is unconditioned. Only when the seventh consciousness cultivates to a certain degree does it gradually transform from conditioned nature to unconditioned nature. At the center of conditioned activity, it is unconditioned, gradually corresponding with the Tathagatagarbha. When it becomes completely unconditioned and fully corresponding, Buddhahood is attained.

Only the Tathagatagarbha, this unconditioned mind, can exist apart from all phenomena. The unconditioned nature of the seventh consciousness cannot exist apart from the phenomena of the threefold world, nor apart from the unconditioned Tathagatagarbha. This unconditioned dharma of the Tathagatagarbha can exist alone even apart from the conditioned threefold world, as in the state of Nirvana without residue. Within Nirvana without residue, the Tathagatagarbha is quiescent and unconditioned, not fabricating a single dharma, utterly pure, supremely pure. Therefore, apart from conditioned phenomena, the unconditioned Tathagatagarbha still exists. Thus, the Patriarch said: "Existence and non-existence precede heaven and earth, formless, originally serene and still."