What Do Unconditioned Dharmas Refer To?

Unconditioned dharmas refer to two things: one is the inherent unconditioned nature of the true mind, and the other is the unconditioned mental nature that the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses acquires through cultivation. The unconditioned has no arising or ceasing; the conditioned has arising and ceasing. The eighth consciousness possesses both conditioned and unconditioned natures.

The unconditioned nature of the eighth consciousness means that the self-nature of one's own mind is non-active: toward all dharmas it is without mind, without any mental activity that actively intends to create anything, and it does not exercise mastery over any dharma. Although the eighth consciousness does engage in activity and mental action when generating the myriad dharmas, its mental nature remains unconditioned—there is no mind that actively creates; it does not know what it is creating, knows nothing of the dharmas of objects, and does not wish to know them, yet it can accord with conditions to generate all dharmas. If the eighth consciousness were not an unconditioned dharma, then there would be no unconditioned dharma whatsoever in either the mundane or the supramundane world. No matter how unconditioned the seven consciousnesses may become, they can never be as unconditioned as the eighth consciousness—even the seven consciousnesses at the Buddha stage are like this.

How is the eighth consciousness unconditioned? Although it has created countless worldly dharmas, the mind remains empty, without mind, without wishes, without arising or ceasing, without any nature of exercising mastery, and without any nature of self. The eighth consciousness is without a self; what is without self is unconditioned—it is not for a self, not for any purpose, and has no self-interest. If a mind without self still belonged to conditioned dharmas, that would be a serious contradiction.

If the eighth consciousness were purely a conditioned dharma, He would certainly be subject to arising and ceasing. How is the eighth consciousness conditioned? Creating worldly dharmas is being conditioned. If the eighth consciousness were purely conditioned, how could the seven consciousnesses draw near to the eighth consciousness, learn from the eighth consciousness, and transform their own mental nature? How could the seven consciousnesses remain immovable in the face of all objects? How could the seven consciousnesses attain the unconditioned and accomplish the Buddha Way? What would the seven consciousnesses learn from the eighth consciousness? If the eighth consciousness were purely a conditioned dharma, then there would be no need for us to investigate Chan to realize the eighth consciousness, and after enlightenment we could not accomplish the transformation of the basis into the pure and unconditioned nature of the eighth consciousness; the seven consciousnesses would never be able to transform their mental nature, and thus neither the enlightened nor the unenlightened could attain buddhahood.