འཕགས་པ་འཇག་རྟན་འཛན་གྱས་ཡངས་ས་དྲས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད 1.22

1.22

Having guarded and cared for such discourses, they will flourish extensively in the final five-hundred-year period to come.

“Noble children, both at the present and after I pass into parinirvāṇa, know that if such a discourse is present in a town, city, mountain, forest, or wilderness, and someone retains, receives, reads, recites, teaches, or explains it, the Buddha resides there. Why is this? Through such causes and conditions, I call buddhas the Dharma body. I declare that by seeing the Dharma one sees the Buddha. The Buddha is not to be regarded as a body of form. Those who trust this teaching, and listen to it, trust the Buddha and listen to the Buddha’s teachings. Those who earnestly practice as taught see the Buddha. Such people are said to be proper teachers, Dharma teachers, and followers of the Dharma.

“Noble children, my body is neither⁶ Dharma nor non-Dharma; it is described in accordance with the Dharma. Called the most sublime gift of Dharma, it is neither grounded in Dharma nor non-ingrained in Dharma. How is this? If it were rooted in Dharma, seeing my body would not be called seeing the Buddha. Noble children, not being rooted in any phenomenon whatsoever is described as seeing the Buddha. Whoever does not see any phenomenon is described as seeing the Buddha. Why is this? It is inappropriate to describe the Thus-Gone One as Dharma or non-Dharma, or to view him as Dharma. Why is this? Noble children, for the monks who wish to understand my Dharma as found in the discourses, if even the Dharma is to be discarded like a raft,⁷ what need we say of non-Dharma?⁸ One who is equanimous regarding Dharma and non-Dharma is said to see the Buddha.