The Profound Consciousness-only Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (36)

Seeing the True Nature of Reality, Five

This chapter, following the breaking of the four marks, goes a step deeper in breaking all marks, including the Buddha's physical form, in order to highlight the Tathāgata's Dharmakāya and to highlight the dharma of ultimate 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: The Buddha said: Subhūti, what do you think? To see the Tathāgata, is one to see the Tathāgata's physical body? Is only one with a physical body the true Buddha? Is the Tathāgata to be seen through bodily marks? Subhūti said, it is not so; seeing the Tathāgata is not done through bodily marks. The true Buddha does not necessarily have marks, because Māra can also conjure up a Buddha with the thirty-two marks, and that 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, the principle-body; it cannot be seen, heard, or touched. The Dharmakāya is without marks, yet there is no mark that is not He, that does not manifest through Him, that is not accomplished through Him. The Dharmakāya is also called the great mirror-like wisdom (ādarśa-jñāna), whose light illuminates the great trichiliocosm and the worlds of the ten directions; there is no dharma not under His illumination, no dharma that 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 fully know, no dharma He cannot manifest. His merits are complete and all dharmas are fully endowed in Him; He is also called omniscience/wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā). The Sambhogakāya Buddha is the adorned 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—teaching the bodhisattvas to cultivate and study the functional seeds contained within the tathāgatagarbha. But bodhisattvas must have meditative concentration (samādhi) at the level 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 for the Buddha's own enjoyment; the enjoyment body for others is manifested by the World-Honored One for the bodhisattvas. Because bodhisattvas' levels of realization differ, the body size and physical 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 emptiness; 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 extends outward, it can encircle five Mount Sumerus.

The Nirmāṇakāya Buddha is a physical body similar to sentient beings, manifested in response to the capacities (indriya) of sentient beings in the ten directions, with a similar lifespan, and He must pass through the eight marks of attaining the Way to become a Buddha: descending from Tuṣita—entering the mother's womb—emerging from the womb—leaving home—subduing Māra—attaining buddhahood—turning the Dharma wheel—nirvāṇa. After leaving home, the World-Honored One manifested as doing the same as sentient beings: carrying the alms bowl, eating, bathing, sleeping, and daily living. The Buddha could have done without these, but deliberately manifested them for sentient beings, because sentient beings' faculties are dull; if He were not equal with sentient beings, they could not follow and learn from Him. They would think the Buddha was inherently so miraculous that we cannot learn to be like that, and then the Buddha would have no way to teach and transform sentient beings. When the Nirmāṇakāya Buddha enters nirvāṇa, unlike arhats who burn away the body and extinguish consciousness, dwelling in a state of nothing whatsoever, He has a liberated form (mokṣa-rūpa); there is always a physical body to benefit and bring joy to sentient beings. Having passed into extinction in this world, He manifests another physical body in other worlds, and that body is liberated, without afflictions or habitual tendencies, having severed all ignorance, including the ignorance of one thought, the beginningless ignorance, and the ignorance as numerous as dust and sand.