I often hear Buddhists talk about “the unconditional”.

I am highly suspicious of this expression. In fact think that it is positively unhelpful, it gives the sense that enlightenment is something that happens very far away. “Unconditional” becomes a kind of mystical realm – some kind of mystical entity or spiritual reality. Sometimes people call this “full”.

why am i doubting unconditionally

I began to think about this when I discovered that a well-known Buddhist teaching on suffering: that there is ordinary pain, the suffering of reversal (such as loss) and the suffering inherent in “conditional existence” said no such thing.

Indeed, the teaching states that there are (in this order) the inevitable physical suffering (the first arrow), the suffering we create by reacting to the first type of suffering (the second arrow), and the suffering we feel when we allow ourselves to be immersed. Let’s try to be in bliss (I call this the “third arrow”) as an escape from these other forms of suffering.

a fatal error

My own teacher, Sangharakshit, commits what I regard as a catastrophic error when he says that “there is conditioned reality and unconditioned reality – or more simply, there is conditioned and unconditional.”

But there cannot be two realities. Only one of these things can be real, although the same reality can be seen in different ways, and perhaps that is what he meant.

Sangharakshit’s habit – shared by many others – to capitalize “unconditionally” reinforces this idea of ​​the word as referring to something specific and abstract. If you say “in reality” you are simply describing what happens. If you say “in reality” it has a very different implication. We start wondering where and what this “reality” is.

See other articles in the “Debugging Dharma’s Source Code” series:

What is this word?

Let’s look at this expression, “unconditionally” or “unconditionally,” or even (heaven help us) “unconditionally.”

One of the prominent places it is found is in the translation of a famous Udaan verse:

There, monks, one unborn, one not brought up, one not created, one not conditioned. If, monks, one was not born, was not brought up, was not created, then that which was born, brought up, was created, was not conditioned. But since the One is unborn, the One not being brought up, the One not created, the One not conditioned, therefore the escape is revealed from that which is born, brought up, created, that which is conditioned.

There are many other places in the scriptures where this proverb is found.

This passage is always interpreted in a spiritual way – as if the Buddha were talking about different worlds. “Unconditionally” sounds even more mysterious now, because it is accompanied by other words: “Not-Born, Not-Being-to-Be, Not-Made.” How mysterious! Surely the Buddha is talking about a world other than the one in which we find ourselves – the world where we were born, brought into being, etc.

What does it really mean?

Remember, first, that there is no direct or indirect article in Pali. The text just says “there is not born, not being brought up, not made, not conditioned.” It already sounds different enough.

These four words (not born, not brought, not created, not created) are synonymous, so asankhata“not-conditioned” or “unconditioned”) has the same meaning as “not-made”. Sankhta can mean “made” or “produced” asankhata Here simply can mean that something has not yet come into existence or does not exist now.

In the United Nikaya, the Buddha explains exactly what he means in using the word “improper” (asankhata,

“And what, monks have not been created? Destruction of desire, destruction of hatred, destruction of attachment, this is called akrit.

So now we have states of mind that are “neither born, nor brought, nor made, did not make,

creation or destruction of mental states

This is actually, I think, a very insightful statement that Buddha is making. He is simply saying that things (specifically the experience of suffering, which he was most interested in, and the mental states that cause suffering) are sometimes created, and sometimes not. They can be “de-created”.

what he’s saying is because it can hurt did not make or destroyed that the experience of suffering can be avoided. if we can cause suffering so can we No create sorrow

If we had previously created certain mental states of suffering, such as craving or aversion, and through practice, we allow them to die. They will no longer be “born, brought up, made, made,” but now “not born, not brought, not made, not made.” and that would be the case Nibbana, which is literally the “burning” of suffering. When the fuel of suffering is burned out, suffering ceases, or is “not created” (asankhata,

There is no such thing as “unconditional”.

“Unconditionally” (asankhata) No problem. It is not “perfect” by any means. This is not “reality”. It is also not “unconditionally”, because both the “the” and “unconditionally” parts are not correct. It implies “the non-creation of things that would otherwise be created.” Lyrically, it is the non-production of suffering, through the non-production of that which causes suffering.

I think that is all Buddha is saying.

traditional interpretation is a distraction

All this metaphysical stuff about “the unconditional” is a million miles away from how the Buddha actually taught, and possibly even how he thought. i want to know the mind of buddha, I want to see those things as they saw him. And having a goal that is not a Buddha’s goal is not helpful in that regard. In fact it is a positive distraction.

Metaphysics of the Buddha’s teachings takes us into the realm of vague speculation. It takes us away from the here and now. It takes us away from our direct experience. It really distracts us from practice.

We don’t need to try to conceive, let alone try to achieve, some mystical state called “unconditional”. We just need to keep working to let greed, hatred, and illusion die, so that they are no longer things that are born, brought in, or created within us. Rather they are not born, are not brought up, are not created.

To be very simple and concrete, we stop creating greed, hatred and delusion and instead destroy them,

WildMind is a community supported meditation initiative. Click here to learn about the many benefits of being a sponsor.