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The Body of Our Loved Ones, the Body of the Buddha
The Buddha possesses many bodies: the body of sentient beings, the Sangha body, the continuation body, the external body, the Dharma body, the Dharma-realm body, the nature of Dharma, and the Dharma-nature-realm body. When he was still alive, the Buddha taught about two main bodies:
- The physical body (subject to birth and death)
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The immortal Dharma body—which consists of five aspects (the fivefold Dharma body):
- The body of precepts (Sīla-kāya)
- The body of concentration (Samādhi-kāya)
- The body of wisdom (Paññā-kāya)
- The body of liberation (Vimokṣa-kāya)
- The body of knowledge and vision of liberation (Vimukti-jñāna-darśana-kāya)
The Dharma body is the teaching and insight that continue forever, manifested through “the fragrance of precepts, the fragrance of concentration, the fragrance of wisdom, the fragrance of liberation, and the fragrance of knowledge and vision of liberation.” Later, the Mahayana developed the concept of the three bodies of the Buddha: Dharmakāya, Sambhogakāya, and Nirmanakāya—in which the transformation body (Nirmanakāya) is the body that manifests in the world to teach and transform.
The Buddha, first of all, is a human being—having ordinary feelings, but thanks to precepts, concentration, and wisdom, he is not dominated by the body of sentient beings. Realizing that Buddha and sentient beings are one (“birth and Buddha are not two”) gives hope to young people and practitioners: anyone can become a Buddha. The Sangha body is the “continuation body,” the place where the Dharma body and the Buddha body are maintained and carried forward. If you want to find the Buddha, to find the Dharma, come to the Sangha—taking refuge in the Sangha is to take refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma, because the Buddha does not end with the physical body but continues to be present through the eyes of wisdom and countless transformation bodies.
