Commentary on the Diamond Sutra: True Seeing in Accord with Reality, Five

Seeing according to reality means seeing the true and actual dharma, not seeing false and illusory dharmas, and not taking illusory dharmas as real. Following the previous chapter's refutation of the four marks, this chapter goes a step deeper to refute all marks, including the Buddha's bodily form, in order to highlight the Tathāgata's Dharmakāya and highlight the dharma of true reality.

Original text: 须菩提。于意云何。可以身相见如来不。须菩提答。不也。世尊。不可以身相见如来。

Explanation: Subhūti, what do you think? To see the Tathāgata—is it to see the Tathāgata's physical body? Is only one with a physical body the true Buddha? Is the Tathāgata seen by means of bodily marks? Subhūti said: It is not so, World-Honored One; the Tathāgata is not seen by means of bodily marks.

The true Buddha does not necessarily have marks, because Māra can also manifest a Buddha with the thirty-two marks; one with marks is not the true Buddha's body. The Buddha has three bodies: the Dharmakāya, the Sambhogakāya, and the Nirmāṇakāya. The Dharmakāya is the true suchness principle-body; it cannot be seen, heard, or touched. The Dharmakāya is without marks, yet there is no mark that is not He; nothing manifests apart from Him, and nothing is accomplished apart from Him. The Dharmakāya is also called the great perfect mirror wisdom (ādarśajñāna), whose light illuminates the great trichiliocosm and the worlds of the ten directions; there is no dharma that is not under His illumination, and no dharma can escape outside this perfect mirror—all are images within the mirror. He possesses immeasurable, boundless, vast wisdom; there is no dharma He does not know, and no dharma He cannot manifest. His merits are perfect and complete, and all dharmas are fully endowed in Him; He is also called the wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā). The Sambhogakāya Buddha is the majestic physical body reaped from the Buddha's cultivation over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas. Śākyamuni Buddha's Sambhogakāya resides in the palace of the Akaniṣṭha Heaven, teaching the Dharma to the Dharmakāya bodhisattva-mahāsattvas from the first bhūmi to the tenth bhūmi, expounding the wisdom of the varieties of paths—the wisdom for attaining buddhahood—and instructing the bodhisattvas in cultivating and studying the seed functions contained within the tathāgatagarbha. But bodhisattvas must have meditative concentration (dhyāna) of the fourth dhyāna or above in order to be born into the highest heaven of the form realm to hear the Buddha personally teach the Dharma.

The Sambhogakāya Buddha has a self-enjoyment body and an enjoyment body for others. The self-enjoyment body is enjoyed by the World-Honored One Himself; the enjoyment body for others is what the World-Honored One manifests for the bodhisattvas. Because bodhisattvas' levels of realization differ, the size and bodily marks of the Sambhogakāya Buddha they see also differ; this is brought about by the bodhisattvas' merit and wisdom, not because the Buddha makes distinctions. The lifespan of the Sambhogakāya Buddha is seven million asaṃkhyeya kalpas; one asaṃkhyeya kalpa contains countless great kalpas. One great kalpa contains four intermediate kalpas—formation, abiding, decay, and void; one intermediate kalpa contains twenty small kalpas, and one small kalpa is 16.8 million years. The Sambhogakāya Buddha's body is extremely vast; compared with the Buddha's body, the Earth is like a ping-pong ball in the Buddha's hand. When one white hair between the Buddha's two eyebrows is extended, it can encircle five Mount Sumerus.

The Nirmāṇakāya Buddha is a physical body similar to sentient beings, manifested in response to the faculties of sentient beings in the ten directions, with the same lifespan. He must pass through the eight marks of attaining the path to become a Buddha: descending from Tuṣita, entering the mother's womb, emerging from the womb, leaving home life, subduing Māra, attaining buddhahood, turning the wheel of Dharma, and entering parinirvāṇa. After leaving home, the World-Honored One manifested, just like sentient beings, carrying the alms bowl, eating and drinking, bathing, sleeping, and daily living. The Buddha did not need these things but deliberately manifested them to sentient beings, because sentient beings' faculties are dull; if He were not equal with sentient beings, they could not follow and learn from Him, and the Buddha would have no way to teach and transform them. When the Nirmāṇakāya Buddha enters parinirvāṇa, unlike an arhat who reduces his body to ashes and extinguishes his wisdom, extinguishing the five-aggregate body, He retains a liberated form (mokṣa-rūpa) to benefit and bring joy to sentient beings. Having entered cessation in this world, He manifests another physical body in other worlds, and that physical body is liberated, without afflictions and habitual tendencies, having severed all ignorance, including fundamental ignorance, beginningless ignorance (avidyā), and dust-like ignorance. Fundamental ignorance can only be fully severed by an arhat of the fourth fruit; only when it is fully severed can one transcend the three realms. Beginningless ignorance is severed by bodhisattvas after their awakening; sentient beings, from beginningless kalpas, have not known that there is a true mind, the tathāgatagarbha; after awakening, beginningless ignorance is broken. Dust-like ignorance refers to the principles and matters that sentient beings do not understand, as numerous as dust and sand; after enlightenment, ignorance is gradually exhausted, and the Buddha path is perfectly accomplished.

The Nirmāṇakāya refers to the immeasurable physical bodies that the Buddha manifests through supernatural powers and meditative concentration (samādhi), distributed throughout the worlds of the ten directions to broadly liberate those with affinities. He manifests whatever body is needed to liberate beings and teaches the Dharma accordingly, engaging in the same activities and practicing together with sentient beings. The Sambhogakāya, the Nirmāṇakāya, and the manifested bodies are all born from the Dharmakāya; they are subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent, and not the true Buddha. Therefore, to see the Tathāgata, one must not see by means of bodily marks. The true Buddha is without marks; if there are marks, it is not true.

Original text: 何以故。如来所说身相。即非身相。

Explanation: Why is this said? Because the bodily marks of which the Tathāgata speaks are marks that are without bodily marks.

After Subhūti turned his mind toward the Great Vehicle, he studied the principle of true reality and suchness; his wisdom was penetrating and fluent, and he could profoundly understand the true meaning of what the Buddha taught. What kind of marks are the Tathāgata's bodily marks that the World-Honored One spoke of in the previous sentence? Subhūti said that the bodily marks of which the Tathāgata speaks are marks without the marks of a physical body—marks that are without marks. The Dharmakāya Buddha possesses the principle of the eightfold negation middle way and countless middle ways; it has true meritorious functions, possessing the virtue of prajñā, the virtue of liberation, and the virtue of nirvāṇa. The virtue of liberation means that the Dharmakāya does not attach to any dharma, does not abide in any dharma, and is not bound by any dharma; He is not within the three realms, yet is not not within the three realms; He is not outside the three realms, yet is not not outside the three realms; toward all dharmas He is suchness, immovable. The virtue of nirvāṇa means that the Dharmakāya possesses the nature of neither arising nor ceasing, the nature of neither coming nor going, the nature of true permanence, the nature of quiescent cessation, the nature of purity (viśuddha), the nature of unchangingness, and the nature of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. The virtue of prajñā means the great wisdom of the Dharmakāya to give birth to all dharmas.