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The Continuity of the Sangha Body, the Buddha Body, and the Dharma Body
The 26th thesis affirms that the three bodies—the Buddha body, the Dharma body, and the Sangha body—inter-are, interpenetrate, and cannot be separated. The Buddha body and the Dharma body are traditional terms (Buddhakāya, Dharmakāya), while the Sangha body (Sanghakāya) is a contribution from Plum Village. A practitioner without a Sangha body is like an orphan, because it is precisely through the Sangha body, as well as through the practice—bhāvanā, sowing the seeds of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in the mind—that the three bodies can manifest.
The Buddhist terms for the three bodies in the Mahayana tradition (Buddha body, Dharma body, Transformation body) are understood here as the Three Jewels:
- The Buddha body—made up of the Dharma body and the Sangha body
- The Dharma body—like the seed of the true Dharma in the mind
- The Sangha body—a community of practice with precepts, ease, and mindfulness
To be a true Sangha, the Sangha body must practice the precepts—from the Five Mindfulness Trainings to the 250 precepts, upholding the prātimokṣa (the code of liberation)—and cultivate mindfulness and freedom. The precepts are not a constraint but a protection of freedom; mindfulness helps us recognize and transform afflictions into bodhi, garbage into flowers.
Building a true Sangha is the career of a practitioner, the path leading to the presence of the Buddha and the Dharma. The true Sangha is recognized through the Four Pairs of Noble Beings (the eight stages of noble fruition), from froglessness (the fruit of having arrived) to the unborn (no birth, no death). We should invest all our resources—talent, happiness, ideals—into the Sangha body, because it is a fertile field of merit, the place where the flowers and fruits of love, liberation, and true happiness are born.
The Continuation of Suffering and Happiness