8.3 (73) Parinibbāna (Nibbāna Sutta)
Thus has it been made known. On one occasion the Blessed One was residing near Sāvatthī, at the Jeta Grove in Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park. On that auspicious occasion the Blessed One was instructing and arousing and inspiring the monks with a discourse centered on Nibbāna. The monks opened their Dharma-ear and responded wholeheartedly to the Dhamma being displayed before them.
Then, upon realizing the great significance that was unfolding, the Blessed One uttered the following verse:
There is, O’ Monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade and unconditioned.
If there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade and unconditioned
There would be no escape from what is born, made, brought into conditioned.
But since there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade and unconditioned
Nibbanic-escape is clearly discerned.
an unborn, unbecome, unmade and unconditioned: (Masefield)
Today we have the most familiar passage from the Udāna, one which is presented time and time again throughout these many blogs. It is a veritable melody of the Unborn, one that sings of the nibbanic-freedom being displayed in THAT which is unconditioned and thus untouched by the birth-marks of phenomenal incarceration. It is clear from all this that whatever is “born, become” into existence is bound by the samsaric laws of that existence. Whereas devoid of any prefabrications what is left is the Prime Principle of Unbornness–Mind is condition-less and therefore transcends any categorical imperatives that rely exclusively upon nominalized characterizations. Hence, there is no [separation] in Mind’s Self-Recollection of its own Un-bifurcated Absolute Reality. In this sense it is never less than its animations, nor is it greater than AS IT IS in Itself. One and undivided in the imageless cradle of Parinibbāna.