What Are Conditioned and Unconditioned?

为 means to act for, for the sake of, with purpose, with demands, with seeking and grasping.

Conditioned activity (saṃskṛta) means there is grasping, there are demands, there is fabrication, there is something to be gained, something sought, there is purpose, there is mental activity, there is fabrication, there is self, there are the four marks. Unconditioned (asaṃskṛta) means being without these mental notions — the opposite of conditioned activity.

A mind that seeks nothing is unconditioned; a mind that gains nothing is unconditioned; a mind with no mental activity toward the world of the three realms is unconditioned; a dharma that is not born is unconditioned; a mind of vast, boundless capacity is unconditioned; a mind without afflictions is unconditioned. A mind that does not need the dharmas of the three realms' 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 marks is unconditioned.

Within the unconditioned, the tathāgatagarbha selflessly serves sentient beings; amid the operation of all dharmas of the three realms, its mind remains unconditioned. Within the unconditioned there is conditioned activity; within conditioned activity there is the unconditioned. Only when the seven consciousnesses are cultivated to a certain degree do they gradually transform from a conditioned nature into an unconditioned nature; while centered on conditioned activity, one is unconditioned, gradually according with the tathāgatagarbha. When one is completely unconditioned and completely in accord, one becomes a Buddha.

Only the tathāgatagarbha, this unconditioned mind, can exist apart from all dharmas. The unconditionedness of the seven consciousnesses cannot be separated from the world of the three realms, nor from the unconditioned tathāgatagarbha. This unconditioned dharma of the tathāgatagarbha can exist independently even apart from the conditioned phenomena of the three realms — that is, during Nirvāṇa without remainder. Within Nirvāṇa without remainder, the tathāgatagarbha abides in quiescent cessation, unconditioned, fabricating not a single dharma, pure and supremely pure. Therefore, apart from conditioned dharmas, there still exists the unconditioned dharma of the tathāgatagarbha. So the patriarch said: 有无先天地，无形本寂寥。