Dharmakaya

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The Dharmakaya Buddha Samantabhadra

Dharmakaya (Skt. dharmakāya; Tib. ཆོས་སྐུ་, chö ku, Wyl. chos sku) — ‘the Absolute or Truth Body’. Upon the attainment of buddhahood, enlightenment manifests at three levels, which are known as the three bodies of the Buddha: the Absolute or Truth Body, or dharmakaya; the Enjoyment Body, or sambhogakaya; and the Emanation Body, or nirmanakaya.

Sogyal Rinpoche writes:

Absolute nature is the dharmakaya, the ‘empty’, unconditioned truth, into which illusion and ignorance, and any kind of concept, have never entered.[1]

'Dharmakaya' is also the eighth of the eight topics of the Abhisamayalankara. See Resultant Dharmakaya.

Notes

  1. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying revised and updated edition (HarperSanFrancisco and London: Rider, 2002), page 347.

Further Reading

  • Thinley Norbu, The Small Golden Key (Shambhala Publications, 1999), ‘14. Dharmakāya’.

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