Knowing Conditions and the Unconditioned

KNOWING CONDITIONS AND 

THE UNCONDITIONED

Ajahn Sumedho

The Mind and the Way (Chapter 10)

We must recognize our fears and perceptions as conditionings, not ultimate truths. In spiritual development, we’re getting to the poin of balance where we recognize the conditions 10f the mind simply as conditions; that is, they begin and end. Whether they are mental or physical, whether they are subject or object, they all have the same characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self.

The unconditioned is something you can’t conceive because conceptions are all conditions. It’s something that has to be known directly. Nibbana is the unconditioned, so when we say we are inclining toward nibbana, we mean toward the unconditioned.

Now what is the unconditioned? You can’t see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, hear it, or think it, yet it’s where all conditions merge. It’s not a sense. It is peace. It doesn’t arise or pass away, begin or end. It’s from there that all conditions arise. When you’re bringing things up into consciousness and allowing them to cease, they cease in the unconditioned.

The goal, then, is to recognize and know conditions as conditions, and the unconditioned as the unconditioned. The goal is to be that knowing. In other words, the goal is to be mindful. It’s not just a belief, it’s something you have to do for yourself -  no one can do it for you. And Buddhism is a vehicle, a convention to help you break through the delusions and find release from the mortal condition as you realize the unconditioned – the deathless state.