THREE BODIES

                                                                                                by Gendo
 
“…the three kayas are said to be ultimately indivisible.  When we rest in our own inherent nature, in its purity (our buddhanature), we discover that our experience embodies the emptiness of the dharmakaya, the impermanence of the sambhogakaya and the practicality of the nirmanakaya, all at once.  This indivisibility goes to the very heart of why we can never succeed in making an ego out of the three kayas.  The dharmakaya – the “formless kaya”- is said to be “for oneself,” because it is the very essence of our own liberation.  By contrast, the two other kayas – the “form kayas” – are said to be “for others,” because they embody compassion and practical assistance to others.” (Reginald Ray, Naropa University, published in Lion’s Roar magazine)
 

Trikaya is ancient Sanskrit language for the “three bodies,” often interpreted as characteristics of an historical person, the Buddha, but in  this text grounded in personal experience, yours and mine.  Buddha, the awakened one, is everyone’s awakening. 
 
And what do we awaken from?  Buddhism’s project, our project, is our discontent, the fixations of mind that raise the question: “How do I find peace of mind?”
 
The trikaya suggest three aspects or stages of that awakening, here described as emptiness, impermance and practicality.  Or what my teacher called “unity, impermance and diversity.” 
 
My view is that we encounter ‘practicality’ or ‘diversity,’ as the myriad objects that seize our attention.
 
Impermanence, however, is the reality that nothing has independent identity. Like inbreath and outreath, like day and night, joy and sorrow, man and woman, life and death.  The list is endless.  It is how consciousness works: we know one thing in relation to another.  And who discriminates one from the other?  It is, of course, the ‘self’ that divides the world according to what affirms its situation versus what has no utility to itself.
 
But if nothing exists independently, then objects perceived from the standpoint of a self are, instead, empty of separate identity!  We distinguish inbreath from outbreath, but the truth of the matter is that you can’t have one without the other.  The same is true of day and night.  If day was all we had, there would be no night.  And there would be no day!  As for life and death, it is only relation to old age and death that life becomes precious.  All such relationships are also ‘unity’.
 
If opposing conditions are one whole, contrast between them disappears, and the self that distinguishes one from the other also disappears (is liberated); and the true nature of diversity (practicality) and impermanence is expressed as  “compassion and practical assistance to others.”