Conditionality and Non-Permanence
One understands: ‘even this signless abiding is conditioned and is manufactured in the mind’.
One understands: ‘further, whatever is conditioned and is manufactured in the mind is not permanent, but something that ceases’.
For one who knows and sees this, what is perceived is liberated from the projection of desire, the projection of existence, and the projection of not-knowing.
With these three sentences, the Shorter Discourse reaches its climax, and gives us a clear description of what we need to do in order to awaken. All of the steps of formless layer meditations have led to this juncture - everything is cleared from the mind, and we can see how we nevertheless still try to alter what we experience to match what we want or expect to see. Since this passage is only three sentences long, it is quite dense, and it likely requires some unpacking in order to be useful. Also, there are two terms, conditioned and not permanent (aka impermanent), which appear quite often in Buddhist literature; however, they aren’t necessarily what they seem! In fact, here we can see, and in fact must see, whether our understanding of conditioned and impermanent is in fact correct.
Up to this point in the Shorter Discourse, traversing the formless layers or “spheres” involved a sequential removal of layers of experience, aspects we otherwise take for granted: three-dimensional space, consciousness, real “somethings” and the basic quality or faculty of perception itself. And yet, each of these layers was seen to be manufactured in the mind, rather than them being a permanent or inherent part of lived experience, because during the meditation we ceased experiencing them. We can therefore see that we have merely conditioned ourselves to believe that these creations were “real”. Their absence also gave us an experience of what emptiness is; however, the main point now is that they were manufactured “somethings” which are not present if we don’t manufacture them.
Up to this point in the Shorter Discourse, traversing the formless layers or “spheres” involved a sequential removal of layers of experience, aspects we otherwise take for granted: three-dimensional space, consciousness, real “somethings” and the basic quality or faculty of perception itself. And yet, each of these layers was seen to be manufactured in the mind, rather than them being a permanent or inherent part of lived experience, because during the meditation we ceased experiencing them. We can therefore see that we have merely conditioned ourselves to believe that these creations were “real”. Their absence also gave us an experience of what emptiness is; however, the main point now is that they were manufactured “somethings” which are not present if we don’t manufacture them.
johnhain
Conditioned and Manufactured in the Mind
As described in the study of semiotics, signs, be they words, sensations, colors, shapes, sounds or anything else, are what we use to conclude that we are aware or conscious of something, and thus know what is happening. For example, the words on your screen right now have agreed-upon meanings: you are taking them in, interpreting them in the agreed-upon way, and (hopefully) understanding what I am trying to convey.
Other signs might include a certain noise which means that the postman just delivered the mail, and a certain sensation can signify that you’re hungry. The taking in and interpretation of signs is how we get through our day. From the standpoint of awakening, though, the question is: do we conclude that we are experiencing actual, tangible “somethings” when interpreting such signs?
In the Shorter Discourse, once we are past the formless layers and in the signless abiding, sensory experience is still occurring, but is no longer interpreted to mean that something in particular is happening. This is because sensations in our legs, a noise in the room, or images of what we had for breakfast are no longer interpreted as signs or indicators of actual “somethings”. It is a bit like driving down the highway and not recognizing what any of the billboards say that pass by, even though we disinterestedly see their colors and shapes. In the same way, in the signless abiding we don’t conclude that we are experiencing anything in particular; in other words, experience is now empty of signs.
We’re so used to living in a world of signs and their corresponding real “somethings” that our daily life seems normal and this “deep” meditation state seems novel. In fact, the first time we experience this stage of the meditation, we may even be a little freaked out because there currently are no signs… of anything! However, even after being “in” this temporary meditative state the tenth or twentieth time, if we live the rest of the day in a world of signs and actual “somethings”, it will likely still seem remarkable that experience is temporarily signless.
On the other hand, if we didn’t normally interpret sensory information as a sign or indicator that we are experiencing an actual “something”, this quiet meditative state would be, well, nothing: it wouldn’t have or need a name, and no name for it would spring to mind. However, because we have come to believe in signs, and normally experience ourselves and all else as real “somethings”, we not only condition ourselves to experience (what we believe are) signs, but are also conditioned to conclude that this temporary abiding is “signless”. In other words, the signless abiding is conditioned by us because we have predisposed ourselves to recognizing it as (a) “something” and naming it. We are therefore instructed to notice that the only reason this abiding seems to be “signless” is because we have conditioned ourselves to see it in that way. As will be seen later with the Wheel of Life, naming things is part of convincing ourselves that we know exactly what is happening in and around us.
This shows that while we may think we know exactly what is happening in everyday life, we really don’t: all we have is an interpretation of sensory information. That we don’t actually know what is happening is termed avijja, typically translated as “ignorance”, though I suggest the more literal translation “not knowing”. The term "not-knowing", unlike "ignorance", is not inherently negative: it simply affirms that we don't know exactly what is happening in and around us. However, we habitually project our not-knowing onto whatever it is we experience, by which we are conditioned conclude that we and all else is a particular “something” that is waiting for us to perceive it. This reinforces our primary conclusion that we are a particular "something" as well.
Nothing is Inherently Conditioned
This sort of conditioning is referred to in Buddhism by the term sankhara (in Sanskrit, samskara), literally what we “do with” sensory experience. Based on not actually knowing what is happening, but assuming we do, we get into the habit of always concluding that we are conscious of particular and real “somethings”, including and especially ourselves. Sometimes this term is translated as “choices”, though it might be said that we no longer have a choice if we get into such habits: we automatically respond to sensory experience in certain and predictable ways. Because of these responses, how we experience ourselves and everything else is sankhata (literally what we've "done with" it all), or conditioned. In other words, nothing is conditioned unless we condition our experiential version of it.
The term “conditioned”, particularly in some Buddhist traditions, is sometimes taken to mean something that is of a component, composite or “confected” nature - those are the conditions that went into making something what it is. For example, sunlight and water, plus the genetic material in the seed from a previous generation of trees, are all components of what makes a tree a “tree”. This line of thinking is easy to understand prior to awakening, and it can seem as though it describes “the way things really are”. If everything and everybody is therefore, by its nature, inherently conditioned, this leads to concepts such as impermanence and interconnectedness: everything is always changing, and nothing is truly separate since it all shares the same matter and energy.
As discussed later, these concepts might be seen as what Buddhism and awakening are all about - “everything is conditioned” can be considered a fundamental or spiritual truth. However, what the term conditioned means, and what we wake up to, is that “the experience of everything is conditioned by me”. As is explicit in the Shorter Discourse, it is only the version that is manufactured in the mind that is conditioned. After awakening, we will still recognize what is generally agreed to be a "tree", but without the conditioned overlay that makes it seem as though both we and the tree are something tangible and "real".
Thus, rather than this final meditative experience being inherently “signless”, or there being something called the “signless abiding” that we just happened to come upon, that name is merely something we have manufactured in our minds because we normally experience signs. Even though literally nothing is happening in this quiet abiding, we still strive to give it a name and see it as a “something”, because we are predisposed to try to know exactly what is happening. As a result, we manufacture the “existence” of this meditative state in our minds, and give it a name. And yet, there is literally nothing happening that could itself be inherently conditioned, illustrating how the adjective "conditioned" does not apply to things themselves - we apply it.
In daily life, it can seem as though there is a real world “out there”: as neuroscientist Anil Seth describes it, we believe that the senses provide transparent windows onto a mind-independent reality. As with objectifying the "signless abiding", it seems that everything in the world already "is what it is", as we perceive it, and we just happened to come upon it. We eventually see that, as the Buddha taught, the “world” that we experience, which includes ourselves and everything (and everybody) else, is really just an interpretation occurring in consciousness. It might be said that we are essentially walking computer graphics cards, collecting information and then creating what we have conditioned ourselves to see as a convincing three-dimensional display that is real and existing. We see this clearly when we awaken: it can then seem as though we are living in something of a video game or movie, compared to what once seemed so tangible and real.
As described in the study of semiotics, signs, be they words, sensations, colors, shapes, sounds or anything else, are what we use to conclude that we are aware or conscious of something, and thus know what is happening. For example, the words on your screen right now have agreed-upon meanings: you are taking them in, interpreting them in the agreed-upon way, and (hopefully) understanding what I am trying to convey.
Other signs might include a certain noise which means that the postman just delivered the mail, and a certain sensation can signify that you’re hungry. The taking in and interpretation of signs is how we get through our day. From the standpoint of awakening, though, the question is: do we conclude that we are experiencing actual, tangible “somethings” when interpreting such signs?
In the Shorter Discourse, once we are past the formless layers and in the signless abiding, sensory experience is still occurring, but is no longer interpreted to mean that something in particular is happening. This is because sensations in our legs, a noise in the room, or images of what we had for breakfast are no longer interpreted as signs or indicators of actual “somethings”. It is a bit like driving down the highway and not recognizing what any of the billboards say that pass by, even though we disinterestedly see their colors and shapes. In the same way, in the signless abiding we don’t conclude that we are experiencing anything in particular; in other words, experience is now empty of signs.
We’re so used to living in a world of signs and their corresponding real “somethings” that our daily life seems normal and this “deep” meditation state seems novel. In fact, the first time we experience this stage of the meditation, we may even be a little freaked out because there currently are no signs… of anything! However, even after being “in” this temporary meditative state the tenth or twentieth time, if we live the rest of the day in a world of signs and actual “somethings”, it will likely still seem remarkable that experience is temporarily signless.
On the other hand, if we didn’t normally interpret sensory information as a sign or indicator that we are experiencing an actual “something”, this quiet meditative state would be, well, nothing: it wouldn’t have or need a name, and no name for it would spring to mind. However, because we have come to believe in signs, and normally experience ourselves and all else as real “somethings”, we not only condition ourselves to experience (what we believe are) signs, but are also conditioned to conclude that this temporary abiding is “signless”. In other words, the signless abiding is conditioned by us because we have predisposed ourselves to recognizing it as (a) “something” and naming it. We are therefore instructed to notice that the only reason this abiding seems to be “signless” is because we have conditioned ourselves to see it in that way. As will be seen later with the Wheel of Life, naming things is part of convincing ourselves that we know exactly what is happening in and around us.
This shows that while we may think we know exactly what is happening in everyday life, we really don’t: all we have is an interpretation of sensory information. That we don’t actually know what is happening is termed avijja, typically translated as “ignorance”, though I suggest the more literal translation “not knowing”. The term "not-knowing", unlike "ignorance", is not inherently negative: it simply affirms that we don't know exactly what is happening in and around us. However, we habitually project our not-knowing onto whatever it is we experience, by which we are conditioned conclude that we and all else is a particular “something” that is waiting for us to perceive it. This reinforces our primary conclusion that we are a particular "something" as well.
Nothing is Inherently Conditioned
This sort of conditioning is referred to in Buddhism by the term sankhara (in Sanskrit, samskara), literally what we “do with” sensory experience. Based on not actually knowing what is happening, but assuming we do, we get into the habit of always concluding that we are conscious of particular and real “somethings”, including and especially ourselves. Sometimes this term is translated as “choices”, though it might be said that we no longer have a choice if we get into such habits: we automatically respond to sensory experience in certain and predictable ways. Because of these responses, how we experience ourselves and everything else is sankhata (literally what we've "done with" it all), or conditioned. In other words, nothing is conditioned unless we condition our experiential version of it.
The term “conditioned”, particularly in some Buddhist traditions, is sometimes taken to mean something that is of a component, composite or “confected” nature - those are the conditions that went into making something what it is. For example, sunlight and water, plus the genetic material in the seed from a previous generation of trees, are all components of what makes a tree a “tree”. This line of thinking is easy to understand prior to awakening, and it can seem as though it describes “the way things really are”. If everything and everybody is therefore, by its nature, inherently conditioned, this leads to concepts such as impermanence and interconnectedness: everything is always changing, and nothing is truly separate since it all shares the same matter and energy.
As discussed later, these concepts might be seen as what Buddhism and awakening are all about - “everything is conditioned” can be considered a fundamental or spiritual truth. However, what the term conditioned means, and what we wake up to, is that “the experience of everything is conditioned by me”. As is explicit in the Shorter Discourse, it is only the version that is manufactured in the mind that is conditioned. After awakening, we will still recognize what is generally agreed to be a "tree", but without the conditioned overlay that makes it seem as though both we and the tree are something tangible and "real".
Thus, rather than this final meditative experience being inherently “signless”, or there being something called the “signless abiding” that we just happened to come upon, that name is merely something we have manufactured in our minds because we normally experience signs. Even though literally nothing is happening in this quiet abiding, we still strive to give it a name and see it as a “something”, because we are predisposed to try to know exactly what is happening. As a result, we manufacture the “existence” of this meditative state in our minds, and give it a name. And yet, there is literally nothing happening that could itself be inherently conditioned, illustrating how the adjective "conditioned" does not apply to things themselves - we apply it.
In daily life, it can seem as though there is a real world “out there”: as neuroscientist Anil Seth describes it, we believe that the senses provide transparent windows onto a mind-independent reality. As with objectifying the "signless abiding", it seems that everything in the world already "is what it is", as we perceive it, and we just happened to come upon it. We eventually see that, as the Buddha taught, the “world” that we experience, which includes ourselves and everything (and everybody) else, is really just an interpretation occurring in consciousness. It might be said that we are essentially walking computer graphics cards, collecting information and then creating what we have conditioned ourselves to see as a convincing three-dimensional display that is real and existing. We see this clearly when we awaken: it can then seem as though we are living in something of a video game or movie, compared to what once seemed so tangible and real.
JuliusH
Not Permanent
Stepping through the meditations in the Shorter Discourse, whether it is ostensibly objective things such as a village or the forest, or more subjective aspects of experience such as space, consciousness, something-ness or perception, we see that if we temporarily stop manufacturing all these "somethings", they aren’t found in experience - experience is empty of them. As a result, we see first-hand that they are not permanent (Pali anicca, pronounced "uh-nitch-uh") and cease, and the same applies to this mentally-created "signless abiding".
The subjective aspects above are what we use to conclude that we exist and have a personal, internal experience: they seem innate or inherent to our lives. It seems that space, consciousness, something-ness, and perception just… are! And yet, as the broader meaning of anicca provides, none of these aspects of experience are internal, owned, controllable or otherwise “ours”, much less permanently so. That they are temporarily absent during these meditations is therefore very significant.
The term anicca is typically translated as “impermanent”, in the sense that things change or that they come and go. This coincides with the sense, as above, that everything that changes is also interconnected: everything influences everything else. Ideas and concepts related to change, impermanence and interconnectedness tend to be a focus of Buddhism, depending on the approach or sect. These concepts can seem important prior to awakening because we start out seeing ourselves and all else as somehow fixed, permanent and separate, and we might assume that we have to exchange one set of assumptions and beliefs for their opposites. It may not occur to us that what we really need to do is simply drop our current assumptions and beliefs, but not replace them with their polar opposites.
With such an approach, impermanence is applied to everything around us, whether it be trees, mountains or the over-ripe banana on our kitchen counter, and also to ourselves, be it our bodies, our thoughts or our feelings. By this, anicca is used as if it affirmatively describes a characteristic or quality that everything has, as “the way things really are”. It may therefore come as something of a surprise that this is not what the Buddha meant. As is made clear in the Shorter Discourse, the term anicca does not apply to everything that we can possibly perceive, but only to the versions of things that we manufacture in our minds. I therefore prefer translating anicca as "not permanent", since the term "impermanence" tends to be reified and applied to everything. Rather than providing an affirmative description of anything, the term "not permanent" simply negates an erroneous description.
In terms of the process of awakening, that our experience of a tree, mountain or banana is not permanent is one thing: that there is nothing that we identify with or as that is permanent is quite another. By this, placing our focus on the things around us misses the point: we need to see that we don't exist, not only as we think we exist, but at all. The chance that our belief in our "selves" will dissipate by reflecting on how all else is not physically permanent, as if by inference, is likely very small.
We eventually see that the notions of change, impermanence and interconnectedness are not aspects of awakening, regardless of the path (or non-path) that we take. Instead, they only apply to how we see things when we start out on the path, as reflected in conventional language. In other words, awakening involves seeing “things” much differently, rather than more deeply seeing things as we see them today. A very different take on “conditioned” and “impermanent” is therefore required.
Stepping through the meditations in the Shorter Discourse, whether it is ostensibly objective things such as a village or the forest, or more subjective aspects of experience such as space, consciousness, something-ness or perception, we see that if we temporarily stop manufacturing all these "somethings", they aren’t found in experience - experience is empty of them. As a result, we see first-hand that they are not permanent (Pali anicca, pronounced "uh-nitch-uh") and cease, and the same applies to this mentally-created "signless abiding".
The subjective aspects above are what we use to conclude that we exist and have a personal, internal experience: they seem innate or inherent to our lives. It seems that space, consciousness, something-ness, and perception just… are! And yet, as the broader meaning of anicca provides, none of these aspects of experience are internal, owned, controllable or otherwise “ours”, much less permanently so. That they are temporarily absent during these meditations is therefore very significant.
The term anicca is typically translated as “impermanent”, in the sense that things change or that they come and go. This coincides with the sense, as above, that everything that changes is also interconnected: everything influences everything else. Ideas and concepts related to change, impermanence and interconnectedness tend to be a focus of Buddhism, depending on the approach or sect. These concepts can seem important prior to awakening because we start out seeing ourselves and all else as somehow fixed, permanent and separate, and we might assume that we have to exchange one set of assumptions and beliefs for their opposites. It may not occur to us that what we really need to do is simply drop our current assumptions and beliefs, but not replace them with their polar opposites.
With such an approach, impermanence is applied to everything around us, whether it be trees, mountains or the over-ripe banana on our kitchen counter, and also to ourselves, be it our bodies, our thoughts or our feelings. By this, anicca is used as if it affirmatively describes a characteristic or quality that everything has, as “the way things really are”. It may therefore come as something of a surprise that this is not what the Buddha meant. As is made clear in the Shorter Discourse, the term anicca does not apply to everything that we can possibly perceive, but only to the versions of things that we manufacture in our minds. I therefore prefer translating anicca as "not permanent", since the term "impermanence" tends to be reified and applied to everything. Rather than providing an affirmative description of anything, the term "not permanent" simply negates an erroneous description.
In terms of the process of awakening, that our experience of a tree, mountain or banana is not permanent is one thing: that there is nothing that we identify with or as that is permanent is quite another. By this, placing our focus on the things around us misses the point: we need to see that we don't exist, not only as we think we exist, but at all. The chance that our belief in our "selves" will dissipate by reflecting on how all else is not physically permanent, as if by inference, is likely very small.
We eventually see that the notions of change, impermanence and interconnectedness are not aspects of awakening, regardless of the path (or non-path) that we take. Instead, they only apply to how we see things when we start out on the path, as reflected in conventional language. In other words, awakening involves seeing “things” much differently, rather than more deeply seeing things as we see them today. A very different take on “conditioned” and “impermanent” is therefore required.