Dharmakhaya ...
This is the wholeness, union, totality so interflowing that any name or idea must do “this” an injustice. Any idea seeks to stuff “it” into a file box held between our ears, and thus fails, much as the names “ocean” or “Mars” cannot begin to capture all the realities and intricacies of the whole sea or entire red planet with a single label and compact mental image. How much less can we hold an idea of some “it” which is everything and more, and in constant motion? "It" is, in fact, such constant motion and change that's there's truly no "it" to nail down at all.
However, just as a sailor might dip his finger into the ocean right where she sails, and taste the whole reality of the ocean in the saltiness on the tip of her finger, or a rover might know something of the whole reality that is Mars just by sampling a few grains of its dust and a scoop of its atmosphere, we can dip our finger and sample our scoop of “this” just by sitting in zazen meditation, thus realizing its presence and truth right in the place where we sit. If all of reality truly is flowing in and out of everywhere as everything, then this flowing is happening, in and out, right as this sitting too! We are usually so busy running around and distracted by other thoughts that we do not realize so, thus the need to sit quietly and clear those thoughts. Through zazen (and whatever further methods technology develops in the future to supplement meditation), we can taste and experience the wholeness. We can taste the salt of the universe on our fingertip, look at any one grain of dust, and know the oceanic, unbounded nature as who we are.
Accordingly, to the extent that we are the world, and the world keeps spinning, we keep spinning too in our worldly aspect. To the extent that the world is somehow timeless or, at least, exists for unimaginably long expanses of time, then we do in such sense too. If the universe continues beyond our small little sicknesses, our gains and losses, our birth and death, then we continue beyond such concerns too. Although we may grow old and be bound by time, to the extent that we are a universe that continues on for incredible ages, and that is timeless in some way, then we continue on for incredible ages and are timeless. Although this little body of ours may grow sick and slow, to the extent that our encompassing universal body does not, then we do not.
But that does not mean that this particular personal body won’t wrinkle, writhe in pain sometimes, and eventually rot in the ground, ashes to ashes. Even if we someday increase our life spans many times beyond their present length, invent nearly indestructible titanium and carbon fiber replacement bodies, upload our minds into mainframes or “the cloud,” nonetheless, someday we will die, even the hardest body will decay, the cloud will dissipate, the mainframe will irreversibly crash and the whole universe will run cold. Frankly, none of that concerns the Zen fellow, for we taste that we are also a whole, so whole that it is even the change, the coming and passing, and holds even all that. It is somehow beyond the change even as it is all things changing.
In other words, whatever scientists someday discover as the cause, or the ‘cause of the cause,’ or the ‘cause of the cause of the cause,’ or otherwise the most fundamental nature of that which brought about this world and sentient life in the first place, know we are that too. It does not matter how far back one goes once one stops thinking in terms of separation, before and after. If there is a universe, we are the universe; if there is a multi-verse, we are the multi-verse; if there is a God, we are this God; if there is something more or something ultimately else, we are so. It is much like saying that, though I do not know the name, number and workings of every organ, atom, bodily process and quantum state within me, looking inward within my body, yet I am just all that and they are just me. Likewise, when we look outward to the rest of reality. I (you too) am just all that, and they are just me (you too) whatever is and however far it reaches.
It is all you, and me too, as much as your own sense of reading these words right now is you, as much as your beating heart is you, as much as a smile or tear on your own face is you, as much as you are you. We were never anything else. You simply need learn how to redefine your “you” a bit beyond your small sense of “you” in order to experience so. You will still have your little “you” so long as your heart is beating, so fear not. It is just that “you” will be so much more too.
And so, this meaning of the term “Buddha” [Dharmakhaya] is applied to refer to this sense of “everything that we truly are.” In fact, this big, boundless “Buddha” includes the little man “Buddha” who lived in India too, just because it includes everything, everyone, leaving nothing out, stars and flowers and rusty tin cans, you and me too! Of course, the fellow in India is also called “Buddha” because he is said to have been generally better than we usually are at awakening to this fact of big “Buddha” wholeness, and showing us how to live accordingly. We Zen folks feel that we are equally this big “Buddha” right now, even if we are not quite so good at being aware of that fact as was little “Buddha,” and even as we must work day-by-day at the "living accordingly."
The “Whole Works” Buddha is the whole of reality which is our other identity, much as Superman is also Clark Kent, as ice is also water, as milk is also a cow, as your “father” is also whoever he was as a younger man before you were born (or even before he was born). Each is but a different way of seeing and knowing different faces that are nonetheless identical, much as a single jewel may have countless different facets each reflecting light in its own angle, yet each and all is the one jewel. Each facet is the whole jewel as that facet, the whole jewel is each facet.
In the future, in a world in which biology and technology may merge, if that would happen, you and I and all reality will be every star and grain of sand, as well as every computer chip and chipped tea cup, length of wire or length of vein, camera and eye, neural memory and memory file that is who we are, and all of that will be all of reality too.
~ ~ ~
Below, the Ancient Knot symbol in Buddhism (Sanskrit: śrīvatsa; Chinese/Japanese: 盤長結), traditionally said to express many truths, such as the unending cycle of birth and death in Samsara which is, no less, intertwined as wholeness and the Buddha's insight into such fact. As well, all corners of reality, all phenomena, are intertwined, as well as one and whole, with all corners of reality. This a ribbon flowing, flowing, tangled and ever changing, yet a single unchanging strand. It is also said to stand for the intertwining of Wisdom and Compassion which are at the heart of our Practice, as well as the intertwining of the Wholeness, Wisdom and Compassion of Buddha, which has no beginning or end, with our need to practice so, living accordingly in this world to bring such truths to life.
An Ancient Knot ...
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