What Is the Aggregate of Form?

Form (rūpa) is the aggregate of form (rūpa-skandha), one of the five aggregates. It has appearance, shape, and color, including visible color (rūpa), shape (saṃsthāna), expressive gesture (vijñapti), and non-expressive form (avijñapti-rūpa); the latter three are forms subsumed under the Dharmāyatana. Visible color refers to blue, yellow, red, and white; shape refers to large, small, square, round, long, short, wide, and narrow; expressive gesture refers to the shapes and postures of form, the movements and actions of the body, coming, going, walking, and stopping, and so forth; non-expressive form refers to the beauty, ugliness, charm, allure, temperament, learning, cultivation, calmness, anger, cheerfulness, warmth, and so on manifested in the appearance of form. Forms subsumed under the Dharmāyatana are the mental sense-objects (dharma-objects) manifested upon form, sound, smell, taste, and touch; they face the manas and are discerned by the mind consciousness. Form also includes the form of sentient beings, male and female physical forms, the universe with its mountains, rivers, and great earth, plants and minerals, houses, palaces, and other insentient things.

The Diamond Sutra says: "If someone sees me through form, or seeks me through sound, that person practices a deviant path and cannot see the Tathāgata." This means that if one wishes to see the Tathāgata, to see the Dharmakāya Buddha (dharma-kāya-buddha), to see the true Buddha, one cannot seek to behold Him through the marks of form or sound. That which has form, sound, and the marks of the six sense-objects is not the true Buddha—it is the Sambhogakāya Buddha (saṃbhoga-kāya-buddha), the Nirmāṇakāya (nirmāṇakāya), the manifested Buddha adorned with the thirty-two marks and eighty excellent characteristics. This is a manifested Buddha subject to arising and ceasing. Because of the power of his merit, Māra Pāpīyas can also manifest the appearance of a Buddha. After the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, the Fourth Patriarch Upagupta had Pāpīyas manifest the physical form of Śākyamuni Buddha for him to behold and venerate. Pāpīyas indeed manifested the Buddha's form, walking out from the forest followed by a group of disciples. At first sight, Upagupta thought it was the true Śākyamuni Buddha and could not help but bow in worship. Unable to withstand the worship, Pāpīyas revealed his original form. Therefore, to see the Tathāgata, one must not cling to the marks of form, and one must not seek to see Him through the marks of form.