Going Beyond Conditionality
lechenie-narkomanii
As described in the Shorter Discourse, we access the signless abiding not just to be in an interesting meditative state, but to see with sufficient clarity how we condition everything, by which we can work to remove the three conditioning projections of desire, existence and not-knowing. Once these projections are removed, what we experience is unconditioned: it is no longer overlain by what we want to see or otherwise experience. At that point, what is seen is "simply the seen".
While removing these three projections is an accurate summary of what awakening entails, it is unlikely that our projections will cease merely by accessing the signless abiding: removing all of our projections is not necessarily an easy or quick undertaking. In fact, there is only one instance mentioned by the Buddha of someone who managed to transition all the way to “in the seen, simply the seen” in one step. For the rest of us, even if we take it one projection at a time, these are still three rather large steps to take!
At some point the Buddha began to teach the formulation of the 10 fetters, which breaks the three projections down into more manageable steps. The three projections correlate closely with the fetters: the projection of desire corresponds to fetters 4 and 5 (desire and ill will), the projection of existence corresponds to fetters 6, 7 and 8 (subjectivity, perception and “I Am”), and the projection of not-knowing corresponds to fetters 9 and 10 (restlessness and not-knowing).
A fourth projection, that of “view” (ditthi), is found in later commentarial literature, and addresses wrong views. Probably the most significant wrong view we have is self-view; if this projection is included, then this can be seen as corresponding to fetter 1 (sakkāya-diṭṭhi, or self-view, literally “the view that this body or accumulation is real”). Including this fourth projection, we can see that removing or “breaking” the fetters equates to removing all of our projections regarding what is happening in and around us. This is not true just on paper: it is a good summary of what we experience in the unfettering process.
The unfettering approach I suggest is to see that there is nothing that either does the projecting or is the result of projection: in other words, to see that experience is empty of something we assume is "in here somewhere". For example, the breaking of the first fetter involves seeing that there is no such thing as a “self”, but that we have merely manufactured one in our mind. Traversing the formless layers and knowing what it means for experience to be empty of something can be a good way to go about this first step (as was the case for me). If we know and see clearly enough that there is no separate self, the illusion is seen to be a projection, and it forever ceases.
Further examples of emptiness and removing projections are encountered as we continue the unfettering process. There is nothing “in here” which projects the push and pull of desire (fetters 4 and 5), no “subject” that projects the sense of “objects” (fetter 6), no perceiver that projects “something-ness” (fetter 7), and nothing that lads to the most subtle duality of “I Am” (fetter 8). Finally, we reconcile ourselves to the fact that we cannot successfully project anything at all onto experience, such as something that is permanently “me”, is substantial, or is inherently pleasing (fetters 9 and 10), because what we seek simply isn't available: experience is empty of it. In other words, we see and know that attempting to condition experience via the projections is pointless. By this, once the fetters are gone, so too are the projections, and vice-versa.
What this illustrates is that the Three Reminders apply not to how things around us change or don't satisfy us, but to the fact that what we identify with is not permanent, what we want it to be or in any way "me". This is summarized in Anathapindika’s “mic drop” statement at AN 10.93 to wanderers from another sect with whom he was debating:
Whatever is (mentally) created, conditioned, intended, and dependently originated is not permanent.
Whatever is not permanent is not what I want it to be.
I have clearly seen with true understanding that whatever is not what I want it to be is not mine, I am not it, and it is not me.
Additionally, I truly understand the freedom from all that.
When this was said, those wanderers sat silent, dismayed, shoulders drooping, downcast, depressed, with nothing to say.
Conditioned and Unconditioned
Once we awaken, daily experience is no longer conditioned because we no longer mentally manufacture conditioned versions of anything. That is all “unconditioned” means: we no longer condition our experience based on our ignorance or not-knowing. At times we might come across mention of “the unconditioned” or even “The Unconditioned”, as if the term refers to a particular thing or destination. Rather than a noun, “unconditioned” is best seen as an adjective, in this case an adjective for the entirety of experience once awake.
Another term occasionally encountered in Buddhist literature is the conditioned or unconditioned element or sphere. Using the term "element" or "sphere" may seem to indicate that there are two elements or spheres: one that is conditioned, and one that is unconditioned. However, the Pali term being translated as “element” is dhatu, which is the same term used to describe the formless layers (above) that are revealed as we peel away our experience of space, consciousness and so forth. Thus, rather than the conditioned element or sphere, we can speak in terms of the conditioned layer, or layer of conditioning, that hangs over the entirety of our experience.
By this, the unconditioned layer is what lies underneath the conditioned layer: unconditioned experience is “what’s left” when all projections finally cease. The Buddha taught that this layer, or perhaps better what remains when all removable layers fall away, is equivalent to awakening or nibbana (Sanskrit nirvana), or the “blowing out” of the projections. I like to refer to it as the "ground floor" of experience, since that is what it can feel like. In this, it’s not that nibbana is an unconditioned “something”, in the sense that it has no preceding causes or conditions; instead, it is what happens by which experience is no longer conditioned. Thus, rather than a noun, nibbana can be seen as more of a verb, noting that, in the Pali language, the suffix -ana used to create terms that indicate the act of doing something. Once the "blowing out" of projections is complete, the term nibbana becomes meaningless.
Whether or not nibbana is seen as an unconditioned “something” can significantly change how traditional texts are translated. For example, consider this translation of a somewhat famous discourse on nibbana attributed to the Buddha:
There is, bhikkhus, a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned.
If, bhikkhus, there were no not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.
But since there is a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.
What exactly the translator intends here is not entirely clear; however, such a translation may appear to imply that there is "a not-born" something in particular, a something that is also not brought-to-being, not-made, etc. Also, since we are to “escape” (nissarana) that which is conditioned, then there must be somewhere else to be, such as a different plane of existence. And yet, that isn't what happens when we awaken.
Alternatively, this passage could be translated with an emphasis on whether or not we condition anything we experience, and free ourselves from doing that:
Monks, there is a layer of experience in which nothing is (mentally) born, brought into being, manufactured or conditioned.
If there were not such a layer of experience, there would be no freedom from the experience of everything being born, brought into being, manufactured and conditioned.
However, because there is such a layer of experience, we can know when we give up conditioning everything as being born, brought into being, manufactured and conditioned.
Thus, rather than escaping the conditioned, we merely stop conditioning how we experience anything.
This second translation can also point to the fact that, as helpful as the terms conditioned and unconditioned might be, the whole purpose of these two mutually-defined concepts is to get to the point where neither term has any meaning. Once all of our projections cease, what we see is "simply the seen” or, in modern parlance, “what you see is what you get” and nothing more. Once this occurs, daily life will not strike us as “unconditioned”, just as the fact that there is no Santa Claus quickly loses its significance once we stop believing in such a being. In the same way, mutually-defined concepts such as permanent/impermanent, substantial/insubstantial, existent/nonexistent and real/unreal lose their significance and meaning if you stop the projections that give them meaning.
While removing these three projections is an accurate summary of what awakening entails, it is unlikely that our projections will cease merely by accessing the signless abiding: removing all of our projections is not necessarily an easy or quick undertaking. In fact, there is only one instance mentioned by the Buddha of someone who managed to transition all the way to “in the seen, simply the seen” in one step. For the rest of us, even if we take it one projection at a time, these are still three rather large steps to take!
At some point the Buddha began to teach the formulation of the 10 fetters, which breaks the three projections down into more manageable steps. The three projections correlate closely with the fetters: the projection of desire corresponds to fetters 4 and 5 (desire and ill will), the projection of existence corresponds to fetters 6, 7 and 8 (subjectivity, perception and “I Am”), and the projection of not-knowing corresponds to fetters 9 and 10 (restlessness and not-knowing).
A fourth projection, that of “view” (ditthi), is found in later commentarial literature, and addresses wrong views. Probably the most significant wrong view we have is self-view; if this projection is included, then this can be seen as corresponding to fetter 1 (sakkāya-diṭṭhi, or self-view, literally “the view that this body or accumulation is real”). Including this fourth projection, we can see that removing or “breaking” the fetters equates to removing all of our projections regarding what is happening in and around us. This is not true just on paper: it is a good summary of what we experience in the unfettering process.
The unfettering approach I suggest is to see that there is nothing that either does the projecting or is the result of projection: in other words, to see that experience is empty of something we assume is "in here somewhere". For example, the breaking of the first fetter involves seeing that there is no such thing as a “self”, but that we have merely manufactured one in our mind. Traversing the formless layers and knowing what it means for experience to be empty of something can be a good way to go about this first step (as was the case for me). If we know and see clearly enough that there is no separate self, the illusion is seen to be a projection, and it forever ceases.
Further examples of emptiness and removing projections are encountered as we continue the unfettering process. There is nothing “in here” which projects the push and pull of desire (fetters 4 and 5), no “subject” that projects the sense of “objects” (fetter 6), no perceiver that projects “something-ness” (fetter 7), and nothing that lads to the most subtle duality of “I Am” (fetter 8). Finally, we reconcile ourselves to the fact that we cannot successfully project anything at all onto experience, such as something that is permanently “me”, is substantial, or is inherently pleasing (fetters 9 and 10), because what we seek simply isn't available: experience is empty of it. In other words, we see and know that attempting to condition experience via the projections is pointless. By this, once the fetters are gone, so too are the projections, and vice-versa.
What this illustrates is that the Three Reminders apply not to how things around us change or don't satisfy us, but to the fact that what we identify with is not permanent, what we want it to be or in any way "me". This is summarized in Anathapindika’s “mic drop” statement at AN 10.93 to wanderers from another sect with whom he was debating:
Whatever is (mentally) created, conditioned, intended, and dependently originated is not permanent.
Whatever is not permanent is not what I want it to be.
I have clearly seen with true understanding that whatever is not what I want it to be is not mine, I am not it, and it is not me.
Additionally, I truly understand the freedom from all that.
When this was said, those wanderers sat silent, dismayed, shoulders drooping, downcast, depressed, with nothing to say.
Conditioned and Unconditioned
Once we awaken, daily experience is no longer conditioned because we no longer mentally manufacture conditioned versions of anything. That is all “unconditioned” means: we no longer condition our experience based on our ignorance or not-knowing. At times we might come across mention of “the unconditioned” or even “The Unconditioned”, as if the term refers to a particular thing or destination. Rather than a noun, “unconditioned” is best seen as an adjective, in this case an adjective for the entirety of experience once awake.
Another term occasionally encountered in Buddhist literature is the conditioned or unconditioned element or sphere. Using the term "element" or "sphere" may seem to indicate that there are two elements or spheres: one that is conditioned, and one that is unconditioned. However, the Pali term being translated as “element” is dhatu, which is the same term used to describe the formless layers (above) that are revealed as we peel away our experience of space, consciousness and so forth. Thus, rather than the conditioned element or sphere, we can speak in terms of the conditioned layer, or layer of conditioning, that hangs over the entirety of our experience.
By this, the unconditioned layer is what lies underneath the conditioned layer: unconditioned experience is “what’s left” when all projections finally cease. The Buddha taught that this layer, or perhaps better what remains when all removable layers fall away, is equivalent to awakening or nibbana (Sanskrit nirvana), or the “blowing out” of the projections. I like to refer to it as the "ground floor" of experience, since that is what it can feel like. In this, it’s not that nibbana is an unconditioned “something”, in the sense that it has no preceding causes or conditions; instead, it is what happens by which experience is no longer conditioned. Thus, rather than a noun, nibbana can be seen as more of a verb, noting that, in the Pali language, the suffix -ana used to create terms that indicate the act of doing something. Once the "blowing out" of projections is complete, the term nibbana becomes meaningless.
Whether or not nibbana is seen as an unconditioned “something” can significantly change how traditional texts are translated. For example, consider this translation of a somewhat famous discourse on nibbana attributed to the Buddha:
There is, bhikkhus, a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned.
If, bhikkhus, there were no not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.
But since there is a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.
What exactly the translator intends here is not entirely clear; however, such a translation may appear to imply that there is "a not-born" something in particular, a something that is also not brought-to-being, not-made, etc. Also, since we are to “escape” (nissarana) that which is conditioned, then there must be somewhere else to be, such as a different plane of existence. And yet, that isn't what happens when we awaken.
Alternatively, this passage could be translated with an emphasis on whether or not we condition anything we experience, and free ourselves from doing that:
Monks, there is a layer of experience in which nothing is (mentally) born, brought into being, manufactured or conditioned.
If there were not such a layer of experience, there would be no freedom from the experience of everything being born, brought into being, manufactured and conditioned.
However, because there is such a layer of experience, we can know when we give up conditioning everything as being born, brought into being, manufactured and conditioned.
Thus, rather than escaping the conditioned, we merely stop conditioning how we experience anything.
This second translation can also point to the fact that, as helpful as the terms conditioned and unconditioned might be, the whole purpose of these two mutually-defined concepts is to get to the point where neither term has any meaning. Once all of our projections cease, what we see is "simply the seen” or, in modern parlance, “what you see is what you get” and nothing more. Once this occurs, daily life will not strike us as “unconditioned”, just as the fact that there is no Santa Claus quickly loses its significance once we stop believing in such a being. In the same way, mutually-defined concepts such as permanent/impermanent, substantial/insubstantial, existent/nonexistent and real/unreal lose their significance and meaning if you stop the projections that give them meaning.
Tetyana Kovyrina
Daily Life Without Conditioning
When we stop the projection of our unrealistic expectations onto all that we experience, our resistance to it naturally stops. It’s not that what is happening is necessarily pleasant or otherwise what we want: awakening is not somehow synonymous with bliss, as some suppose. Instead, we stop imagining that what is happening could or should be any different than it is right now. It also doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t do something now by which things will be different in the future; it’s just that we can be much more effective doing that if we aren’t reacting to what is happening now.
When we get to that point, in Buddhist terms, and in profoundly human terms, suffering has stopped, and we know it. What may have been decades of struggle and effort suddenly comes to an end. Along with this, there is no longer the perceived need to meditate, study, chant or otherwise engage in a “spiritual practice”, because the suffering that made such a practice seem necessary is now gone. The sense of having or being restricted to a mind, a body and a perspective is gone: like smoke gently wafting into the air, we are free.
As the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness puts it:
With liberation, there is the knowledge: “Liberated.” One understands:
“The cycles of existence are at an end, the spiritual path complete,
I have done what needed to be done, and there is no going back to that state.”
In this passage, which is found in many places in canonical literature, the “cycles of existence” as depicted in the Wheel of Life no longer occur, since not-knowing or ignorance is no longer projected: we get off the hamster wheel as it were. While we may not have been clear on exactly why we took up the spiritual “path” in the first place, we now know what the true purpose was, and also that we have fulfilled it. There is clearly nothing else to be done from a “spiritual” perspective, and there is no chance of once again believing the results of our mentally-projected conditioning.
Fortunately, awakening doesn’t mean that we forget how to use and understand conventional language. For example, we still know and can say that “the stoplight is red” or “this apple is delicious”, and we remember what terms like "impermanent", “conditioned” or “empty” mean in conventional terms even though they have no particular meaning to us. We also see that such conventional meanings have nothing to do with awakening, but are simply how we navigate daily life both before and after awakening. While we continue to recognize a “tree” or a “frying pan”, they appear to us as insubstantial images, which of course they always were, though our projections made what we experienced previously seem existing, tangible and “real”.
Once we stop conditioning what we perceive, the concept of “impermanence”, in the sense that things change, will be just that: a concept, rather than a spiritual truth. As the Buddha stated in the following passages from AN 3.47:
There are three characteristics of whatever we condition (i.e., is conditioned): an arising is perceived, a ceasing is perceived, and change while it exists is perceived.
There are three characteristics of whatever we do not condition: no arising is perceived, no ceasing is perceived, and no change while it exists is perceived.
These passages do not address how, at the conventional level, composite things such as automobiles are created out of certain materials, degrade and eventually cease to be automobiles. While this is of course true in an everyday sense, unless we personally shred an automobile and melt it down to molten metal, all we can to is think in the abstract about how "ceasing" potentially applies to an "automobile".
Instead, these passages address whether we actually perceive (rather than think about) rise, change and ceasing at all. Looking back after awakening, we can see that the sense of rise, change or ceasing was an entirely conceptual understanding. It might be described that, once awake, phenomena simply “appear” as mental interpretations, and it no longer makes any sense to think about the rise, change and fall of such interpretations. Thus, if the term “impermanence” and how things change seems pertinent and even fundamental to you, that is an indicator that you are still conditioning what you experience, and that what is seen is not "simply the seen".
Similarly, the term “interconnected”, outside of conventional usage, will lose its meaning as well, since it requires the notion of at least two “somethings” that are interconnected. If you no longer have any sense of having or being a being or entity, there is simply no basis for being “interconnected”. Instead, there is no longer any sense of its mutually-defined opposite, separation. Once awake, it is of course still possible to reflect how, at the level of concept and convention, we do in fact live in an interconnected world in so many ways; however, as with impermanence and change, this will not be a “spiritual” truth.
That is not to say that, in conventional terms, what we do or don’t do doesn’t have consequences. For example, the Buddha often used similes that use this principle, such as the simile of a bad seed to illustrate how one’s intentions and views influence how one’s path to awakening proceeds (or not). Similarly, the “Noble 8-Fold Path” describes that what we do, and how we do it, is critical to getting off on the right foot, and the “4 Noble Truths” summarize why we suffer and how we awaken. In fact, the whole spiritual path itself might be described in a progressive way in which each step leads to the next, as in the Prerequisites (Upanisa) Discourse. However, while the path may be described in similes such as these, it is not the case that the actual experience of awakening has a progressive sense, or that anything is actually created; if anything, and as made explicit in the Prerequisites Discourse, awakening is a "destructive" process, in that our projections are done away with.
Once awake, there are still innumerable (what could be called) conditionings that remain: otherwise, we would not be able to get through our day. For example, we wouldn’t be able to recognize a car, a frying pan or anything else. Fortunately, we retain the conditioning to recognize things at least nominally: in other words, we are still conditioned(!). However, those conditionings are no longer based on not-knowing or ignorance, therefore we no longer conclude that either we or anyone or anything else exists as a real entity, whether permanent, impermanent or otherwise, and we no longer suffer as we act on those conditionings in daily life. In the language of semiotics, we still recognize what are ostensibly signs related to a car or frying pan, but no longer ascribe any “real” meaning to them. A friend once described life after awakening as “The Great Unknowing”, something that may sound a bit scary at first, but it is a good description of “what’s left” once all delusive conditioning is gone.
It might be said that the conditionings that remain after awakening comprise an “autopilot” of sorts, allowing us to navigate daily life. Some of those conditionings are not necessarily helpful; for example, how we respond to certain people and situations may not change a great deal compared to our response patterns prior to awakening. Since those response patterns were laid down decades ago in the service of an assumed “self”, they aren’t necessarily helpful or constructive responses. However, the difference is that those conditioned responses no longer lead to suffering (at least to us…).
And once we awaken, we can still access what we once called the “signless abiding” by simply dropping all mental activity and experiencing… nothing, even though we are still conscious and physically awake. However, no particular name for this “state” will arise: the fact that experience is empty of signs will no longer be remarkable, and it will not feel like a “meditative state”. If we choose to reflect a bit, we might recall that there are no signs or indicators of anything; however, it is just a somewhat quieter version of what is otherwise daily life - “what’s left” when all mental activity ceases. In other words, daily life is signless as well, and is simply the “new normal”. We will also be able to instantly recognize, as in the formless layers meditations described in the Shorter Discourse, that experience is now empty of space, consciousness and so forth, whether sitting quietly or getting on with daily life, but their absence will also not be remarkable, and it also won’t feel like a meditative “state”.
When we stop the projection of our unrealistic expectations onto all that we experience, our resistance to it naturally stops. It’s not that what is happening is necessarily pleasant or otherwise what we want: awakening is not somehow synonymous with bliss, as some suppose. Instead, we stop imagining that what is happening could or should be any different than it is right now. It also doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t do something now by which things will be different in the future; it’s just that we can be much more effective doing that if we aren’t reacting to what is happening now.
When we get to that point, in Buddhist terms, and in profoundly human terms, suffering has stopped, and we know it. What may have been decades of struggle and effort suddenly comes to an end. Along with this, there is no longer the perceived need to meditate, study, chant or otherwise engage in a “spiritual practice”, because the suffering that made such a practice seem necessary is now gone. The sense of having or being restricted to a mind, a body and a perspective is gone: like smoke gently wafting into the air, we are free.
As the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness puts it:
With liberation, there is the knowledge: “Liberated.” One understands:
“The cycles of existence are at an end, the spiritual path complete,
I have done what needed to be done, and there is no going back to that state.”
In this passage, which is found in many places in canonical literature, the “cycles of existence” as depicted in the Wheel of Life no longer occur, since not-knowing or ignorance is no longer projected: we get off the hamster wheel as it were. While we may not have been clear on exactly why we took up the spiritual “path” in the first place, we now know what the true purpose was, and also that we have fulfilled it. There is clearly nothing else to be done from a “spiritual” perspective, and there is no chance of once again believing the results of our mentally-projected conditioning.
Fortunately, awakening doesn’t mean that we forget how to use and understand conventional language. For example, we still know and can say that “the stoplight is red” or “this apple is delicious”, and we remember what terms like "impermanent", “conditioned” or “empty” mean in conventional terms even though they have no particular meaning to us. We also see that such conventional meanings have nothing to do with awakening, but are simply how we navigate daily life both before and after awakening. While we continue to recognize a “tree” or a “frying pan”, they appear to us as insubstantial images, which of course they always were, though our projections made what we experienced previously seem existing, tangible and “real”.
Once we stop conditioning what we perceive, the concept of “impermanence”, in the sense that things change, will be just that: a concept, rather than a spiritual truth. As the Buddha stated in the following passages from AN 3.47:
There are three characteristics of whatever we condition (i.e., is conditioned): an arising is perceived, a ceasing is perceived, and change while it exists is perceived.
There are three characteristics of whatever we do not condition: no arising is perceived, no ceasing is perceived, and no change while it exists is perceived.
These passages do not address how, at the conventional level, composite things such as automobiles are created out of certain materials, degrade and eventually cease to be automobiles. While this is of course true in an everyday sense, unless we personally shred an automobile and melt it down to molten metal, all we can to is think in the abstract about how "ceasing" potentially applies to an "automobile".
Instead, these passages address whether we actually perceive (rather than think about) rise, change and ceasing at all. Looking back after awakening, we can see that the sense of rise, change or ceasing was an entirely conceptual understanding. It might be described that, once awake, phenomena simply “appear” as mental interpretations, and it no longer makes any sense to think about the rise, change and fall of such interpretations. Thus, if the term “impermanence” and how things change seems pertinent and even fundamental to you, that is an indicator that you are still conditioning what you experience, and that what is seen is not "simply the seen".
Similarly, the term “interconnected”, outside of conventional usage, will lose its meaning as well, since it requires the notion of at least two “somethings” that are interconnected. If you no longer have any sense of having or being a being or entity, there is simply no basis for being “interconnected”. Instead, there is no longer any sense of its mutually-defined opposite, separation. Once awake, it is of course still possible to reflect how, at the level of concept and convention, we do in fact live in an interconnected world in so many ways; however, as with impermanence and change, this will not be a “spiritual” truth.
That is not to say that, in conventional terms, what we do or don’t do doesn’t have consequences. For example, the Buddha often used similes that use this principle, such as the simile of a bad seed to illustrate how one’s intentions and views influence how one’s path to awakening proceeds (or not). Similarly, the “Noble 8-Fold Path” describes that what we do, and how we do it, is critical to getting off on the right foot, and the “4 Noble Truths” summarize why we suffer and how we awaken. In fact, the whole spiritual path itself might be described in a progressive way in which each step leads to the next, as in the Prerequisites (Upanisa) Discourse. However, while the path may be described in similes such as these, it is not the case that the actual experience of awakening has a progressive sense, or that anything is actually created; if anything, and as made explicit in the Prerequisites Discourse, awakening is a "destructive" process, in that our projections are done away with.
Once awake, there are still innumerable (what could be called) conditionings that remain: otherwise, we would not be able to get through our day. For example, we wouldn’t be able to recognize a car, a frying pan or anything else. Fortunately, we retain the conditioning to recognize things at least nominally: in other words, we are still conditioned(!). However, those conditionings are no longer based on not-knowing or ignorance, therefore we no longer conclude that either we or anyone or anything else exists as a real entity, whether permanent, impermanent or otherwise, and we no longer suffer as we act on those conditionings in daily life. In the language of semiotics, we still recognize what are ostensibly signs related to a car or frying pan, but no longer ascribe any “real” meaning to them. A friend once described life after awakening as “The Great Unknowing”, something that may sound a bit scary at first, but it is a good description of “what’s left” once all delusive conditioning is gone.
It might be said that the conditionings that remain after awakening comprise an “autopilot” of sorts, allowing us to navigate daily life. Some of those conditionings are not necessarily helpful; for example, how we respond to certain people and situations may not change a great deal compared to our response patterns prior to awakening. Since those response patterns were laid down decades ago in the service of an assumed “self”, they aren’t necessarily helpful or constructive responses. However, the difference is that those conditioned responses no longer lead to suffering (at least to us…).
And once we awaken, we can still access what we once called the “signless abiding” by simply dropping all mental activity and experiencing… nothing, even though we are still conscious and physically awake. However, no particular name for this “state” will arise: the fact that experience is empty of signs will no longer be remarkable, and it will not feel like a “meditative state”. If we choose to reflect a bit, we might recall that there are no signs or indicators of anything; however, it is just a somewhat quieter version of what is otherwise daily life - “what’s left” when all mental activity ceases. In other words, daily life is signless as well, and is simply the “new normal”. We will also be able to instantly recognize, as in the formless layers meditations described in the Shorter Discourse, that experience is now empty of space, consciousness and so forth, whether sitting quietly or getting on with daily life, but their absence will also not be remarkable, and it also won’t feel like a meditative “state”.