佛祖統紀 4.35

4.35

Preface: The Wise One [Zhiyi] said: 'These relics are perfumed and cultivated by morality, concentration, and wisdom. When investigating their meaning, there is the distinction between the physical body and the Dharma body, whole and divided. "I do not enter extinction, but am ever on Vulture Peak"—how could this not be the whole Dharma body? Now, discussing the eighty-four thousand [relics] after nirvāṇa, it only demonstrates the physical and fragmented bodies.' For countless eons the Tathāgata has repeatedly appeared, precisely in order to open the traces of the physical body to reveal the origin of the Dharma body, and to use the narrowness of the fragmented body to show the pervasiveness of the whole body. How could the vast expedient means for benefiting beings be conceivable?