止觀輔行傳弘決 8.18

8.18

Next, regarding the explanation of the thirty-six bodies: according to the previous citation of the treatise (*Dazhidulun*) in the catechism, contemplating the Buddha according to the Dharma means that the Buddha is the Dharma body, and the meaning of the Dharma body corresponds to nirvāṇa and prajñā, while that which is responded to and illumined corresponds to defilement and all phenomena; hence they can be called 'these three being of one mark.' If differentiated where there is no difference, this precisely corresponds to the virtue of the Dharma body. Looking from body to body, they form thirty-six. If they are different in name but identical in meaning, there is no need to distinguish them, as fully set forth at the end of the second fascicle, pairing the three prajñās with the three bodies. Since object and wisdom mutually manifest and mutually illumine, this causes the bodies also to mutually arise and mutually enter: illumining the object is like entering, and manifesting wisdom is like arising. Now, if we further distinguish them according to a different meaning, directly forming thirty-six within the Buddha's body, by further opening the transformation body out of the response [body] so as to pair them with the Dharma and reward [bodies], they make four. Regarding 'emerging and entering': the flourishing of transformation is emerging, and the cessation of transformation is entering. Question: One has only heard that the three bodies arise from the Dharma body; one has not heard that the other three arise from the transformation body, or that the Dharma and reward [bodies] arise from the response body. Answer: Arising from the superior to produce the inferior is applying the provisional; arising from the inferior to produce the superior is opening the provisional. Explaining the meaning by leaping over distinctions is inconceivable; there is nothing that is not the dharma-dhātu, and therefore they can mutually arise and mutually enter without obstruction. What is its characteristic? Just as the transformation and response [bodies] themselves say, 'My present body is the Dharma body,' how much more is it not the reward [body]! The capacity to arise being such, mutual entering is patterned after this. In principle there is neither arising nor entering; it is explained in terms of conditions for transformation—how could one, on account of conditions, obliterate the principle? Furthermore, one should correlate them with the thirty-six phrases of stimulus and response in the text of the *Xuan[yi]*. The three—transformation, response, and reward—are termed manifest, while the Dharma is concealed. Furthermore, the reward body can be both concealed and manifest, because the reward body is divided into the difference between enjoyment for self and enjoyment for others. Therefore, the present text accords in secret with the treatise (*Dazhidulun*). The treatise says, 'These three are of one mark,' and therefore their meaning is identical. Although one, they are three, and so they are explained distinctly once again.