PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

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Pacific World
Beginning with the Jin’gang xian lun (Vajrarśī’s (?) Commentary [on
the Vajracchedikā (Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra)]), purportedly a commentary on
Vasubandhu’s Jin’gang bore boluomi jinglun (Treatise on the Diamond Sutra
of the Perfection of Wisdom), translated by Bodhiruci in 535, a new element
was introduced into the debate in China. 93 Although this work appears to
have had little impact in India or Tibet, in the northeastern China of the
sixth century it added important new elements to the Yogācāra debate and
to meditative practice. In an effort to explain both the Vajracchedika’s, or
Diamond Sutra’s, denial that the Buddha can be known through his major
and minor marks as well as the efficacy of knowing the Buddha through
those very marks, the commentary introduced the concept of the “two
kinds of dharmakāya” (erzhong fashen, ). Here the “dharmakāya of
the dharma-nature” (faxing fashen, ; Skt. dharmatādharmakāya) was
distinguished from the “dharmakāya of expediency” (fangbian fashen,
; Skt. upāyadharmakāya). The dharmakāya of the dharma-nature is the
dharmakāya in its ultimate nature. 94 The dharmakāya of expediency is the
dharmakāya that responds to activities and includes both the sambhogakāya
and nirmāṇakāya. What is noteworthy for our discussion is that this idea
linked the Buddha’s major and minor marks—features of the dharmakāya of
expediency—intimately to the dharmakāya of the dharma-nature. Meditative
visualization of the Buddha’s form with his marks is at once a gateway
to and a meditation on the ultimate nature of the dharmakāya.
To see the Buddha merely through the visualization of his major and
minor marks is, however, denied. The cakravartin, the world monarch of
Indian political ideology, also displays these marks. On the other hand, to
see these marks as empty and as the natural expression of the dharmakāya
of dharma-nature, i.e., as representations of the dharmakāya of expediency,
is to see them in their true context. Seen in their true context, the meditative
visualization of the Buddha with his major and minor marks can be
efficacious.
An index of how this concept of the twofold dharmakāya was received
and how it was used to explain the efficacy of Buddha visualization may be
seen in Tanluan’s commentary (zhu, ) to the *Sukhāvatīvyuhopadeśa (Wuliangshou
jing youpotishe yuan sheng jie, ), the Verses
on the Vows for Rebirth: An Upadeśa on the Amitāyus-sūtra. 95 First, Tanluan
introduced the distinction between the dharmakāya of dharma-nature and
the dharmakāya of expediency in a straightforward, matter of fact way, as if
it were already common knowledge. 96 He then states that “the dharmakāya
of dharma-nature produces (sheng, ) the dharmakāya of expediency; the
dharmakāya of expediency expresses (chu, ) the dharmakāya of dharmanature,”
and argues that “while different they are indivisible, one yet cannot
be made the same” (yi er buke fen yi er buke tong, ).
Elsewhere this idea of the inseparability and interfusion of the two types