Buddha Body of Actual Reality

Buddha Body of [Actual] Reality (chos sku)

• The buddha-body of reality (dharmakāya) is the essence of the enlightened mind, which is uncreated (skye med), free from the limits of conceptual elaboration (spros pa'i mtha' bral), empty of inherent existence (rang bzhin gyis stong pa), inwardly radiant, beyond duality and spacious like the sky. It is said to be present as an uncultivated seed in unenlightened beings, and fully developed or nurtured when buddhahood is attained, thereby giving rise to all the other modes of buddha-body. In certain texts, the buddha-body of reality is described as a coalescence of pure appearance and emptiness. As emptiness it is non-dualistic, pure and free of all levels of conceptuality and can only be directly experienced; and as pure appearance it is the underlying pristine nature of mind, a non-dualistic and subtle inner radiance. In the literature of the rNying-ma school, in particular, the buddha-body of reality has three aspects: the natural purity of mind, which is known as Samantabhadra, the natural purity of phenomena, which is known as Samantabhadrī, and the coalescence of these two which is known as Kun-bzang yab-yum. The intermediate state of the time of death ('chi kha'i bar do) is considered to be an optimum time for the realisation of the buddha-body of reality. GD (from the Glossary to Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings)