Quotes:Trikaya: Difference between revisions

'''{{Style S-Small capitals|Trikâya}}'''. Lit., three bodies, or forms. This is a most abstruse teaching which, however, once understood, explains the mystery of every triad or trinity, and is a true key to every three‐fold metaphysical symbol. In its most simple and comprehensive form it is found in the human Entity in its triple division into spirit, soul, and body, and in the universe, regarded pantheistically, as a unity composed of a Deific, purely spiritual Principle, Supernal Beings — its direct rays — and Humanity. The origin of this is found in the teachings of the pre historic Wisdom Religion, or Esoteric Philosophy. The grand Pantheistic ideal, of the unknown and unknowable Essence being transformed first into subjective, and then into objective matter, is at the root of all these triads and triplets. Thus we find in philosophical Northern Buddhism (1) Âdi‐ Buddha (or Primordial Universal Wisdom) ; ( 2) the Dhyâni‐Buddhas (or Bodhisattvas); (3) the Mânushi (Human) Buddhas. In European conceptions we find the same: God, Angels and Humanity symbolized theologically by the God‐Man. The Brahmanical ''Trimûrti'' and also the three‐fold body of Shiva, in Shaivism, have both been conceived on the same basis, if not altogether running on the lines of Esoteric teachings. Hence, no wonder if one finds this conception of the triple body — or the vestures of Nirmânakâya, Sambhogakâya and Dharmakâya, the grandest of the doctrines of Esoteric Philosophy — accepted in a more or less disfigured form by every religious sect, and explained quite incorrectly by the Orientalists. Thus, in its general application, the three‐ fold body symbolizes Buddha’s statue, his teachings and his stûpas ; in the priestly conceptions it applies to the Buddhist profession of faith called the'' Triratna'', which is the formula of taking “refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha”. Popular fancy makes Buddha ubiquitous, placing him thereby on a par with an anthropomorphic god, and lowering him to the level of a tribal deity; and, as a result, it falls into flat contradictions, as in Tibet and China. Thus the exoteric doctrine seems to teach that while in his Nirmâ kâya body (which passed through 100,000 ''kotis ''of transformations on earth), he, Buddha, is at the same time a Lochana (a heavenly Dhyâni‐ Bodhisattva), in his Sambhogakâya “robe of absolute completeness”, and in Dhyâna, or a state which must cut him off from the world and all its connections; and finally and lastly he is, besides being a Nirmânakâya and a Sambhogakâya, also a Dharmakâya “of absolute purity”, a Vairotchana or Dhyâni‐Buddha in full Nirvâna! (See Eitel’s ''Sanskrit‐Chinese Dictionary.'') This is the jumble of contradictions, impossible to reconcile, which is given out by missionaries and certain Orientalists as the philosophical dogmas of Northern Buddhism. If not an intentional confusion of a philosophy dreaded by the upholders of a religion based on inextricable contradictions and guarded “mysteries”, then it is the product of ignorance. As the Trailokya, the Trikâya, and the Triratna are the three aspects of the same conceptions, and have to be, so to say, blended in one, the subject is further explained under each of these terms. (See also in this relation the term “ Trisharana”.)

{{Quote source HPB TG|Trikaya}}