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Dharma Body
The growing identification of the
Buddha with the Dharma-as-Absolute leads naturally to the development of
the idea that what a buddha most essentially is, is the 'Dharma-body'
(Dharmakaya), which sometimes--as in the late Theravadin text, the
Dhamma-kayassa Atthavannana--refers to the Buddha's physical body as a
symbolic key to the Dharma, but more often--especially in such Mahayana
texts as the Ratnagotravibhaga and Mahayanasamgraha--denotes the pervasive
'absolute reality' (p. 134) of buddha-hood. The Dharmakaya is, in its own
nature (svabhavaikakaya), unmanifest, inexpressible and inconceivable, i.e.
absolutely transcendent (lokottara) but, 'out of mere conformity with the
world', it naturally emits its apparent forms (rapakaya), the Sambhogakaya
and Nirmanakaya, which employ skillful pedagogical means (upayakausalya) to
bring suffering beings closer to the absolute reality that has been their
nature all along. For much of the tradition, then, the Buddha's physical
body is a docetic appearance, less 'real' than his pure, non-dual, eternal,
inconceivable own-nature, yet still useful as a cipher pointing to the
Dharma and the absolute, and as 'a symbol that bridges the two spheres of
reality, creating a unity that the mystics in their own way seek to
attain'.
from
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/jackson.htm
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