Sublime

Here, too, there is no recourse to such crowd-pleasers as the radiation of light from the Buddha’s body or the appearance of deities and other worlds. This is because this sutra is directed toward those who seek and are ready to accept instruction in the highest wisdom, shorn of all spiritual accessories.

considered as a small universe or small nature (xiao tian di, 小天地). The head is the heaven (tian ling gai, 天靈蓋) and the perineum is the sea bottom (hai

He puts aside his prajna and dharma eyes and turns to his buddha eye (cf. Chapter Eighteen), as he brings us to the mother of buddhas, which cannot be approached as a perception but as an experience, the experience and acceptance of the selfless, birthless nature of all dharmas.

it isn’t emptiness that distinguishes this sutra. It’s about bodies, beginning with the Buddha’s body and ending with the body of every noble son or daughter who practices this teaching. Our real body is what ties all these words together.

The bodhisattva’s journey does not end until all beings are liberated. But if this is to work, the category sattva (being) must be expanded to include all beings.

five dharmas: appearance, name, projection, correct knowledge, and suchness; the three modes of reality: imagined, dependent, and perfected; the eight forms of consciousness: one

Hui-neng says, “This teaching is neither true nor false. This path is neither great nor small. Salvation and liberation depend on abilities. Choose among the different doctrines and hold up one for veneration. Thus follows a chapter on the true teaching of the Great Path.”

For this teaching is the diamond body, the dharma-kaya, the body of truth, which buddhas realize and teach to others.