In fact, the true Buddha is none other than the intrinsic nature of our own mind. The Buddha’s Dharma body (dharmakaya)—the nature of mind itself—has no discriminative thought. You cannot even find its “substance” if you try to look for it. That kind of truly existent essence which the Madhyamaka refutes simply cannot be found.
Yet we can realize it. At the moment of realization, we directly understand that it is indeed empty—not truly existent. This means it has no substantially existent essence. But this does not mean that nothing exists; it is not the nihilistic emptiness we imagine as sheer nothingness. Nihilism means nothing at all, a hollow void. The Buddha is not like that. What is present is awareness.
Even our current idea of “awareness” is not quite right, because what we imagine as awareness is still a form of discriminative thought. But when you truly enter into it, you will discover that it is a kind of awareness that is both free from discriminative thought and unfindable. In fact, even saying it this way is not quite accurate. Ultimately, whether there is discriminative thought or not, it is simply that way as it is.
When we pray to the Buddha, what we are actually doing is praying to the intrinsic nature of our own mind. How does he bless you? You yourself are already a Buddha! Then why don’t you feel that you are a Buddha? Why are there so many sufferings? In truth, it is because, on this basis, you have given rise to ignorant discrimination—establishing an ego, and establishing grasping at phenomena. If you have faith and pray to him, then, in accordance with your particular causes and conditions, certain qualities inherently possessed by the dharmakāya will naturally be revealed. I can only explain it this way.
What qualities does the dharmakāya itself possess? At the moment of realization, you will be extremely clear-minded and wise—or one could say you experience unsurpassable joy, peace, and non-attachment, and so on. When you pray to him, it means that your mind is willing to sense, or return to, those qualities inherent in your own mind-nature. When you pray, the fewer your karmic obscurations and the greater your sincerity, the more these effects will manifest in you as an individual. Yet in itself, the dharmakāya has no discriminative thought whatsoever. Put this way, is it a bit easier to understand?
If you ask what the dharmakāya of the Buddha is really like, you may think of it as empty space; think of its function as sunlight; and think of our so-called “self” as a pitiful individual tightly wrapped from head to toe in layers of self-created obscuration. Our prayer is simply the act of loosening and unbinding these wrappings—piercing a hole in the covering of ignorance. However big the hole is, that is how much sunlight can shine through. One may understand it this way, at least provisionally.
To put it more concretely: when you pray, the qualities of your own intrinsic nature—that is, the very qualities the Buddha possesses—wisdom, compassion, non-attachment, unsurpassable peace and joy, and so forth—will begin to manifest within your mental continuum (saṃtāna).
In what way do they appear? Because you yourself still possess ignorance, they manifest through dependently arisen phenomena (pratītyasamutpāda). And what appears? All kinds of mundane and supramundane blessings. But does it itself have any discriminative thought? For example, would your own mind-nature ever say, “I am going to benefit that person”? The nature of mind is fundamentally without other, without self, without Buddha, and without sentient beings. Anyone who has reflected on emptiness even a little more deeply, or has had even a slight experiential taste of it, will immediately understand this.
But does the nature of mind itself—what we call the true Buddha—have discriminative thought? No, it does not. That is why the ancient Chan masters used such imagery to describe it: “The sun rises in the east while rain falls in the west—one says there is no clear sky, yet it is clear.” Borrowing Liu Yuxi’s famous line, “One says there is no ‘clear,’ yet there is ‘clear,’” we can replace the word clear with feeling or sentience. When the dharmakāya liberates beings, do you say it is sentient? It has no discriminative thought. Do you say it is insentient? Yet it can benefit you. Thus, “one says it is heartless, yet love is there.”
You may think of it as sunlight or air. If you need air and open your mouth, it naturally enters. If you do not need it, it certainly will not come in. If you need it but cover your nose and mouth, there is still no way for it to enter. But does the air itself have any discriminative thought? Of course not.
When applied to our own practice, what does it mean to “feel that we need him”? When we believe in the Buddha, we feel that we need him. Once we feel that need, how do we open our nose and mouth to let him in? We must practice and pray sincerely—only then can the “air” enter and benefit us. If one does not believe in the Buddha at all and feels no need, then there is simply no way. But even after believing, if one does not know how to open the nose and mouth, that still will not work.
At present, most of us have not even opened our mouths or noses. Many people are studying Buddhism and feel they need the Buddha’s blessings and help, but how exactly do they rely on the Buddha? They do not know. For us Vajrayāna practitioners, there is actually a very simple way: rely on the guru, because the guru is the complete embodiment of the Three Jewels. In addition, one must pray diligently, cultivate reverence, and make prostrations—there are many such methods. Without these, it will not work either.
It is not that the Three Jewels need us to do these things. In fact, our reverent prostrations are for the purpose of ripping that hole of ignorance wider and wider. When it is completely opened, you will be no different from the guru and the Three Jewels—this is what is called guru yoga. You may ask, “How exactly do I open it?” Very simply, what needs to be opened is the layer of ignorance that wraps around you. What is ignorance? It is grasping at the self of a person and grasping at the self of phenomena—the so-called dual grasping. To be even more specific, you must practice: practice the Five Preliminary Practices (Ngöndro) and practice guru yoga.
This article is a preliminary translation draft and has not yet been reviewed or proofread by the speaker.
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