The Differences Among Various Unconditioned Dharmas

Question: The Diamond Sutra says that all sages and saints differ by means of the unconditioned dharma (asaṃskṛta-dharma). Does this mean the differences arise from 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. Among them, those at the first and second fruits of the Small Vehicle are "sages" (śruta), and those who have seen the mind but have not yet reached the first bhūmi are also sages. The first two types, the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, are of Small Vehicle spiritual faculties (indriya); 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 and realize the tathāgatagarbha—this is the distinction between Mahāyāna bodhisattvas and the Small Vehicle śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas.

The unconditioned dharma realized by the Buddha is the most ultimate and thorough: not only is self empty, dharmas are also empty; the grasping at self and grasping at dharmas are 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, and thereafter the mind of the seven consciousnesses will also become increasingly unconditioned—like the tathāgatagarbha, whose mental activity remains unconditioned amid the fabrications of conditioned dharmas: both conditioned and unconditioned. The Small Vehicle śrāvaka, by contrast, has realized the emptiness of self in the five aggregates (pañca-skandha)—this is the Small Vehicle's unconditioned dharma. The pratyekabuddha has realized the dharma of dependent origination through the twelve links of dependent origination: all dharmas arise from causes and conditions, and are therefore empty—this too is a kind of unconditioned dharma. Thereafter, the minds of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas cease all fabrication, and the seven consciousnesses must also become unconditioned. But this unconditioned nature differs from that of the tathāgatagarbha: the tathāgatagarbha remains unconditioned in its mental activity amid the fabrications of 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, existing only in dependence upon the truly unconditioned tathāgatagarbha; it is neither ultimate nor real. They still take dharmas as truly existent, take the three realms and the six paths as truly existent dharmas, and take suffering-feeling as truly existent. They do not know that all of these are conjured up by the tathāgatagarbha, that in substance they do not exist, and that all are the tathāgatagarbha's nature. Therefore the level of unconditioned dharma they realize is very low. Although bodhisattvas have realized the unconditioned dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, at a level higher than śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, because their cultivation is insufficient they have not completely taken refuge in the tathāgatagarbha; their mental activity is not yet completely empty and unconditioned, so this too is not ultimate. Only the Buddha possesses the ultimate and thorough unconditionedness.

Some 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 vows 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, fear their own saṃsāra, refuse to continue cultivating, refuse to save sentient beings, and choose to enter nirvāṇa—entirely unlike the mental conduct of bodhisattvas.

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 rise 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 illusory and need not be feared or avoided. Realizing the tathāgatagarbha should enable one to observe the tathāgatagarbha directly in the present. If one merely hears the name "tathāgatagarbha" and believes 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 selflessness of the five aggregates and the twelve links of dependent origination. Because the unconditioned dharmas they realize differ, sages and saints have differences of great and small, high and low; and bodhisattvas, because their degrees of realization of the tathāgatagarbha differ, also differ in wisdom and in the fruits they attain.

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