Dharmakāya
The dharmakāya is one of the three bodies of a buddha in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The dharmakāya constitutes the unmanifested, "inconceivable" aspect of a buddha out of which buddhas arise and to which they return after their dissolution. Buddhas are manifestations of the dharmakāya called the nirmāṇakāya, "transformation body". Reginald Ray writes of it as "the body of reality itself, without specific, delimited form, wherein the Buddha is identified with the spiritually charged nature of everything that is."
The Dhammakāya tradition of Thailand and the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras of the ancient Indian tradition view the dharmakāya as the ātman of the Buddha present within all beings.
Origins and development
Pali Canon
In the Pāli Canon, Gautama Buddha tells Vasettha that the Tathāgata is Dhammakaya, the "Truth-body" or the "Embodiment of Truth", as well as Dharmabhuta, "Truth-become", that is, "One who has become Truth."During the Buddha's life great veneration was shown to him. A mythology developed concerning the physical characteristics of Universal Buddhas.
After the Buddha's Parinirvana a distinction was made between the Buddha’s physical body or rūpakaya and his dharmakaya aspect. As the Buddha told Vakkali, he was a living example of the "Truth" of the Dharma. Without that form to relate to, the Buddha's followers could only relate to the dharmakaya aspect of him.
In SN 6.2 – Garava sutta. Buddha paid homage to the Dhamma and tell, that he will respect it.
Trikaya doctrine
The Trikaya doctrine is a Buddhist teaching both on the nature of reality, and the appearances of a Buddha.The dharmakaya-doctrine was possibly first expounded in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, composed in the 1st century BCE.
Around 300 CE, the Yogacara school systematized the prevalent ideas on the nature of the Buddha in the Trikaya "three-body" doctrine. According to this doctrine, Buddhahood has three aspects:
- The Nirmāṇakāya, "Transformation body"
- The Sambhogakāya, "Enjoyment-body"
- The Dharmakāya, "Dharma-body"
Qualities
- Great purity,
- Great realization,
- Great mind.
Interpretation in Buddhist traditions
Mahāsāṃghika
According to Guang Xing, two main aspects of the Buddha can be seen in Mahāsāṃghika teachings: the true Buddha who is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifested forms through which he liberates sentient beings through skillful means. For the Mahāsaṃghikas, the historical Gautama Buddha was one of these transformation bodies, while the essential real Buddha is equated with the dharmakāya.Sarvāstivāda
viewed the Buddha's physical body as being impure and improper for taking refuge in, and they instead regarded taking refuge in the Buddha as taking refuge in the dharmakāya of the Buddha. As stated in the Mahāvibhāṣā:Theravāda
In the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, the Dhammakāya is explained as a figurative term, meaning the "body" or the sum of the Buddha's teachings. The Canon does not invest the term dhammakāya with a metaphysical or unrealistic connotation. Jantrasrisalai disagrees though, arguing that the term originally was more connected with the process of enlightenment than the way it later came to be interpreted.In the atthakathās, the interpretation of the word depends on the author. Though both Buddhaghoṣa and Dhammapāla describe dhammakāya as the nine supramundane states, their interpretations differ in other aspects. Buddhaghoṣa always follows the canonical interpretation, referring to the teaching of the lokuttaradhammas, but Dhammapāla interprets dhammakāya as the spiritual attainments of the Buddha. Dhammapāla's interpretation is still essentially Theravāda though, since the Buddha is still considered a human being, albeit an enlightened one. The Buddha's body is still subject to kamma and limited in the same way as other people's bodies are.
In a post-canonical text Sri Lankan text called Saddharmaratnākaraya, a distinction is drawn between four different kāyas: the rūpakāya, dharmakāya, nimittakāya and suñyakāya. The rūpakāya refers to the four jhānas here; the dharmakāya refers to the attainment of the first eight of the nine lokuttaradhammas; the nimittakāya refers to the final lokuttaradhamma: Nibbāna with a physical remainder ; and the suñyakāya refers to Nibbāna without physical remainder. However, even this teaching of four kāyas does not really stray outside of orthodox Theravāda tradition.
In a more unorthodox approach, Maryla Falk has made the argument that in the earliest form of Buddhism, a yogic path existed which involved the acquisition of a manomayakāya or dhammakāya and an amatakāya, in which the manomayakāya or dhammakāya refers to the attainment of the jhānas, and the amatakāya to the attainment of insight and the culmination of the path. In this case, the kāyas refer to a general path and fruit, not only to the person of the Buddha. Although Reynolds does not express agreement with Falk's entire theory, he does consider the idea of an earlier yogic strand worthy of investigation. Furthermore, he points out that there are remarkable resemblances with interpretations that can be found in Yogāvacara texts, often called Tantric Theravada.
The usage of the word dhammakāya is common in Tantric Theravāda texts. It is also a common term in later texts concerning the consecration of Buddha images. In these later texts, which are often descriptions of kammaṭṭhāna, different parts of the body of the Buddha are associated with certain spiritual attainments, and the practitioner determines to pursue these attainments himself. The idea that certain characteristics or attainments of the Buddha can be pursued is usually considered a Mahāyāna idea, but unlike Mahāyāna, Yogāvacara texts do not describe the Buddha in ontological terms, and commonly use only Theravāda terminology.
Dhammakaya Movement of Thailand
The Dhammakaya Movement of Thai Theravada Buddhism has doctrinal elements which distinguish it from conventional Theravāda Buddhism. Basing itself on the Pali suttas and meditative experience, the movement teaches that the Dhammakaya is the eternal Buddha within all beings. The dhammakaya is Nibbāna, and Nibbāna is equated with the true Self. In some respects its teachings resemble the Buddha-nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism. Paul Williams has commented that this view of Buddhism is similar to ideas found in the shentong teachings of the Jonang school of Tibet made famous by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen.The Thai meditation masters who teach of a true self of which they claim to have gained meditative experience are not rejected by Thai Buddhists in general, but tend, on the contrary, to be particularly revered and worshipped in Thailand as arahats or even bodhisattvas, far more so than more orthodox Theravada monks and scholars.
Mahāyāna
Prajnaparamita
According to Paul Williams, there are three ways of seeing the concept of the dharmakaya in the prajnaparamita sutras:''Lotus Sutra''
In the Lotus Sutra the Buddha explains that he has always and will always exist to lead beings to their salvation.Tathāgatagarbha
In the tathagatagarbha sutric tradition, the dharmakaya is taught by the Buddha to constitute the transcendental, blissful, eternal, and pure Self of the Buddha. "These terms are found in sutras such as the Lankavatara, Gandavyuha, Angulimaliya, Srimala, and the Mahaparinirvana, where they are used to describe the Buddha, the Truth Body and the Buddha-nature." They are the "transcendent results ".Tibetan Buddhism
In Tibetan, the term chos sku glosses dharmakāya; it is composed of chos "religion, dharma" and sku "body, form, image, bodily form, figure". Thondup & Talbott render it as the "ultimate body". Padmasambhava, Karma Lingpa, Gyurme Dorje, Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa define "Buddha-body of Reality", which is a rendering of the Tibetan chos-sku and the Sanskrit dharmakāya, as:The Yungdrung Bon term for dharmakāya is rdzogs sku, where rdzogs means "perfection".
Reginald Ray, writing of the Vajrayana view of the dharmakaya, defines it as:
The Dalai Lama defines the dharmakaya as "the realm of the Dharmakaya-- the space of emptiness--where all phenomena, pure and impure, are dissolved. This is the explanation taught by the Sutras and Tantras." However he also states that its distinct from the Hindu concept of Brahman because buddhism adheres to the doctrine of emptyness.
Rime movement
According to Jamgon Kongtrul, the founder of the Rimé movement, in his 19th century commentary to the Lojong slogan, "To see confusion as the four kayas, the sunyata protection is unsurpassable", when one meditates on ultimate bodhicitta and rests in a state where appearances simply appear but there is no clinging to them, the dharmakaya aspect is that all appearances are empty in nature, the sambhogakāya is that they appear with clarity, the nirmanakaya is that this emptiness and clarity occur together, and the natural kāya aspect is that these are inseparable.Gyaltrul Rinpoche's Dharmakaya Organization
Recently, Dharmakaya has also become the name for an organization founded by the 4th Trungram Gyaltrul Rinpoche, and is affiliated with his global organization the United Trungram Buddhist Fellowship.Gyaltrul Rinpoche's Dharmakaya organization was founded for the specific purpose of bringing the teachings and meditation practices from the Trungram Tradition of the Karma Kagyu lineage to North America.
Iconography
Emptiness
In the early traditions of Buddhism, depictions of Gautama Buddha were neither iconic nor aniconic but depictions of empty space and absence: petrosomatoglyphs, for example.Sky-blue
Thondup and Talbott identify dharmakaya with the naked, unornamented, sky-blue Samantabhadra:Fremantle states:
The colour blue is an iconographic polysemic rendering of the mahābhūta element of the "pure light" of space.
The conceptually bridging and building poetic device of analogy, as an exemplar where dharmakaya is evocatively likened to sky and space, is a persistent and pervasive visual metaphor throughout the early Dzogchen and Nyingma literature and functions as a linkage and conduit between the 'conceptual' and 'conceivable' and the 'ineffable' and 'inconceivable'. It is particularly referred to by the terma Gongpa Zangtel, a terma cycle revealed by Rigdzin Gödem and part of the Nyingma "Northern Treasures".