Body Of Buddha Research Articles

The Zen of Mahāvairocana, Or: Does Bodhidharma’s Nose Preach the Dharma?

Abstract This paper addresses the relationship between Zen and tantric or esoteric Buddhism in premodern Japan from the point of view of the Buddhas and Buddha bodies considered to be preaching these two traditions. After surveying theories on the dharmakāya teaching already present in Chinese Buddhism, it considers the development of this doctrinal notion in the Japanese tantric traditions. The paper demonstrates that this tantric discourse on the Buddha as preacher provided thinkers such as Enni 圓爾 (1202–1280) and Chikotsu Daie 癡兀大慧 (1229–1312) with a framework to integrate Zen into a tantric world. Eventually, and under the influence of embryological motifs circulating widely in medieval Buddhism, Zen practitioners came to establish their own theories on the human as Buddha body. The paper concludes that medieval Zen and medieval tantric Buddhism should be considered sister movements.

The ‘iridescent effect’: living colour and the animated Buddha body

The ‘iridescent effect’: living colour and the animated Buddha body

Religion and the imperial body politic of Japan

This article offers a religious history of the Japanese emperor’s body as it was discursively constructed, visually imagined, and ritually reinforced as the larger body politic. It demonstrates that the Shinto-inflected notion of the imperial body politic (J. kokutai) technically only emerged during the early modern period in Japan. It therefore draws attention instead to the important premodern Buddhist precursors that first equated the emperor’s own body with the greater state polity of Japan. Buddhist teachings about the world-body of Buddhahood (dharmakaya), the monumental bronze Buddha body of Birushana in Nara, and Buddhist ritual activity throughout Japan’s provincial temple system all helped to construct Emperor Shomu (r. 710–56) as the all-protecting head of the family-state (kokka). Later esoteric Buddhist teachings about ‘becoming a Buddha in this very body’ (sokushin jobutsu) and elaborate state-protecting rites performed before Kukai’s (744–835) multi-headed and multi-armed figures all helped to protect the body of the emperor (or his clothes), and by extension, the health and wellbeing of the country at large. Finally, modern reformulations such as Kiyozawa Manshi’s (1863–1903) ‘hand metaphor’ and Minobe Tatsukichi’s (1873–1948) ‘organ theory of government’ continued to resonate with these pre-existing Buddhist corporeal tropes, as well as with newly imported Western philosophical constructs. As a result, this premodern Buddhist analysis of the emperor’s rhetorical, artistic, and ceremonial body-state demonstrates the centrality of the human body in imagining religious authority and political power in Japan.

Soil Bacteria and Fungi Respond Differently to Organisms Covering on Leshan Giant Buddha Body

Soil microbial communities play a key role in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, in particular through their interaction with above-ground plants and weathering of rocks. In this study, the chemical properties and microbial diversity of soils covered by different organisms on Leshan Giant Buddha body were analyzed. The results showed that the concentration of soil total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) increased significantly with the change of above-ground organisms from lichens to bryophytes and vascular plants. TOC, TN, TP, C:N, and C:P were significantly correlated with the composition of microbial community. Bacterial and fungal diversity responded differently to the change of organisms, and the diversity of bacterial communities changed significantly among different sites. The settlement of Embryogenic plants increased the α-diversity indices including Sobs, Shannon, Ace and Chao indices, which were highest in sites covered with Ferns. The relative abundances of Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Nitrospirae and Planctomycetes increased with the order of Bryophyte, Fern, Grass and Shrub, and Cyanobacteria was opposite, with the highest in samples covered with lichens. These results improve understanding of plant–fungi–bacteria interactions during the early stages of soil development, and provide a scientific basis for protection of Leshan Giant Buddha.

A Historical Perspective on the Integration of Mind and Material presented in Dharmakāya and Adībuddha

This study is to examine the formation and development of Buddhist thought concerning mind and material oriented with Dharmakāya and Adībuddha. In the age of Gautama Buddha religion of India maintained the theory of Brahman, a creator of universe along with the materialism of elements asserted by Indian philosophers. Gautama Buddha denied the creator of heavenly god or materialism instead asserted Dependent Origination that any manifestation of mind and material resulted from elements and environment regardless of any predefined attributes or nature. The foundation of the Dependent Origination and the Four Elements of material were designated by Dharma. In the age of Mahāyāna Buddhism. the rule of Dependent Origination and emptiness were integrated into Dharmakāya as a personalization of Dharma. The idea of Two Truth in Mahāyāna Buddhism overcomed the danger of regarding Dharma or Dharma-kāya as independent or eternal nature by dividing all the phenomenon into properties of emptiness and that of distinction and discrimination. The idea of Dharmakāya developed to the three bodies of Buddha, which attributes are described in Ornament Sūtra and also in Kālacakra Tantra as Adībuddha, which prove the historical continuity of Mahāyāna Buddhism that were transmitted to Tibetan Buddhism survived today.

The Structure of ‘āśrayaparāvṛtti’ in the <i>Mahāyānasaṅgraha</i>

In the Mahāyānasaṅgraha, Asaṅga refers to the spiritual awakening called āśrayaparāvṛtti, the conversion of the individual ontological base. For the sake of this awakening, one must hear Buddha’s instruction in the beginning. By hearing that, śrutavāsanābīja, the spiritual potential for awakening, is impressed on one’s ontological base called dharmakāya, the primordial body of Buddha. From this potential, manojalpa (mind’s talk), the Buddhist rational consciousness, occurs. And from this consciousness, nirvikalpajñāna, the Buddhist wisdom without differentiation, occurs. This wisdom leads us to āśrayaparāvṛtti which converts the ontological base from ālayavijñāna, our secular ontological base, to dharmakāya. After this awakening, we obtain sarvajñajñāna (omniscient wisdom), the highest Buddhist wisdom. On tracing this kind of process of wisdom’s development, I make clear the structure of āśrayaparāvṛtti in the Mahāyānasaṅgraha.

Performing the Jeweled Pagoda Mandalas: Relics, Reliquaries, and a Realm of Text

Unlike any Japanese object before them, the jeweled pagoda mandalas challenge viewers to discern word from picture. Analyzing their production and the complicated process of viewing a surface that refuses strict delimitation as text or image and as relic or reliquary reveals these mandalas to be visualizations of the multiplicity of the Buddha body. The paintings collapse distinction with indivisibility while the constant slippage of signifier into signified escapes rigid duality, a realization urged by the surface's perlocutionary effect. These singular works uncover underlying dynamics in premodern Japanese Buddhist art, such as invisibility, performativity, and an increasingly textualized visual world.

The Buddha and the Bathwater: Defilement and Enlightenment in the Onsenji engi

This article examines origins of Onsenji, a temple at Arima hot springs, together with a set of closely related tales of other sites of curative bathing where religious exemplars encounter Buddhist deities of healing, to explore narrative and doctrinal patterns of engi genre. It suggests how a common literary trope, of deities who appear as lepers to test compassion and perception of their followers, serves institutional priorities of particular local sites and how contents of these tales articulate Buddhist claims about pollution and purity, ignorance and insight, and sickness and salvation. It argues that soteriology of these stories, in which mental defilements are shown to be origin and engine of all human suffering, express in narrative form meaning of term engi as a Buddhist technical term for theory of dependent origination.KEYWORDS: Onsen engi-Gyoki-Yakushi-lepers-bathhouses-healing(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)ON THE SEVENTH day of fourth month of 1452, Zuikei Shuho ... (1392-1473)-literatus, historian, diplomat, confidant of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu ..., and abbot of Zen monastery Shokokuji ...-left his residence in Kyoto and journeyed to Arima Onsen ... The Arima hot springs were but a day's journey from capital and attracted members of capital elite long before and long after Zuikei's mid-fifteenth century visit. The Nihon shoki ... notes that sovereign Jomei ... (593-641) traveled to Arima Onsen in autumn of 631 and again in autumn of 638, spending a period of three months there during each visit (nkbt 68: 229, 232). Although Jomei was first royal pilgrim of record, many other eminent visitors were to follow. Arima's later patrons included such figures as Regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi ... (990-1074), Abdicated Sovereign Horikawa ... (1079-1107), Abdicated Sovereign Go-Shirakawa ... (1127-1192), Toyotomi Hideyoshi ... (1536-1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu ... (1542-1616), who all traveled to hot springs for healing waters and sacred blessing of Medicine Master Buddha, Yakushi (...; Sk. Bhaisajyaguru). The early fourteenth-century handscroll Zegaibo-e ... describes Arima as the place where Medicine King appears and where Bodhisattva Gyoki ... experienced his blessings. There is a sacred image of Yakushi and medicinal waters of hot springs flow from Buddha's body (Umezu 1978, 100).During his three-week stay at hot springs, Zuikei visited Onsenji ..., temple of hot springs that enshrined sacred image of Yakushi; there he listened to history of temple while viewing a painting (Fujiwara 2007a, 11). The painting, Onsenji engi-e ... (Illustrated origins of Onsenji), still exists. It is a large-format hanging scroll in ink and colors on silk dating from late-thirteenth or early-fourteenth century.1 Accounts of temple's history are also extant in multiple textual sources. The earliest iteration of narrative is in Tachibana no Narisue's ... Kokon chomonju ... (Notable tales old and new) of 1254. It next appears in Onsenyama juso yaku no ki ..., written in 1279 by resident Buddhist monk of Onsen jinja, temple-shrine at hot springs.2 It is found as well in fourteenth- century Onsenji engi ..., account that Zuikei heard (Kato 2010, 251). Although each of these retellings contain essentially same story, they should not be conflated. Engi are neither unitary nor stable entities. They migrate across time, literary format, and media. They constitute a composite and fluid genre, one in which multiple narratives and diverse interests are sutured together to formulate a single and singular history. Zuikei's description of having listened to history of temple while viewing a painting also reminds us that textual and visual modes were often coarticulated and that engi should also be understood as performative: they belonged to repertoire of picture recitation (etoki . …

Reflections on the Dichotomy Rūpakāya/Dhammakāya

In the first part of the paper, I argue against the idée reçue that rūpakāya is a Pali phrase referring to relics and images of a Buddha after his nirvana. It does not: it refers either to any human body, or to the Buddha's body while alive. In the second part I argue that appreciating how the dhammakāya is actually instantiated through time requires us to abandon the interpretive dichotomy which sets it as an ‘immaterial’, ‘spiritual’ object against ‘material objects’ such as relics, images, and amulets. As instantiated in writing and speech-events it functions in the same ways. It too is an embodied object of ritual pūjā.

華厳の仏身と見仏の意義

華厳の仏身と見仏の意義

神智従義の三身解釈

神智従義の三身解釈

『大乗大義章』における仏身論

『大乗大義章』における仏身論

浄影寺慧遠の『観無量寿経義疏』「第九仏身観」について

浄影寺慧遠の『観無量寿経義疏』「第九仏身観」について

浄影寺慧遠『観無量寿経義疏』「第九、仏身観」について

浄影寺慧遠『観無量寿経義疏』「第九、仏身観」について

A Perspective on the Rendition of Buddha-nature in Tiantai Studies

The Da ban niepan jing _??__??__??__??__??_ is based upon a two-cause theory of buddha-nature-zhengyin _??__??_ and yuanyin _??__??_ (=liaoyin _??__??_), as acknowledged by most scholars during Tiantai Zhiyi's _??__??__??__??_ time. Whereas, Zhiyi advances the amalgamation of three aspects-zhengyin foxing _??__??__??__??_ (buddha-nature of a primary cause), liaoyin foxing _??__??__??__??_ (buddha-nature of a cause to complete one's sense), and yuanyin foxing _??__??__??__??_ (buddha-nature of a subsidiary cause)-collectively referred to as sanyin foxing _??__??__??__??_ (theory of buddha-nature in three causes). Zhiyi confers central importance to the unified theory of li _??_ (the law of nature), zhi _??_ (wisdom), and _??_ xing (training), upon which other themes such as the theory of Buddha's body, enlightenment, nature, and ascetic practices can be discussed. His buddha-dhatu theory is thoroughly covered in the Fahua xuanyi _??__??__??__??_, and is further organized, enriched, and consummated in the Weimo jing wenshu _??__??__??__??__??_. However, We must note that Zhiyi probably had no access to any annotated commentaries explaining the Niepan sutra, thus precluding any motivation to necessitate a detailed comparison with the Niehnan sutra.Zhiyi's disciple, Guanding _??__??_, would write the commentaries, Xuanyi _??__??_ and Wenju _??__??_, on the Niepan sutra after Zhiyi's death. Guanding's Neihpan xuanyi _??__??__??__??__??_, however, does not make reference to Zhiyi's three-cause buddha-nature theory. And, although much attention is laid within the introductory chapters of Guangding's Niepanshu _??__??__??__??_ upon the three-cause theory of buddha-nature in his discussion of the three virtues in embracing one's ruler, master, and parent from the standpoint of Zhiyi's three central themes, this marks the limit of its mention. Thereafter, Guanding only advocates a two-cause theory of buddha-nature. Guanding stood on the fringe between both the text of the Niepan sutra and of Zhiyi's three-cause buddha-nature theory and did not attempt to dissolve discrepancies. This may have posed a problem for Guanding, as it is also visible in his approach of seemingly continuing Zhiyi's conception of sanshen _??__??_ (three-bodies of the Buddha)in accounting for the commentaries on the Eternity chapter of the Lotus Sutra _??__??__??_, while in actuality, rendering a two-body conception of Buddha.

Shinran's Concept of the Buddha Body in the Chapter of the Kyogyoshinsho on the “Land of the Transformation Body”

It is known that the Kyogyoshinsho (_??__??__??__??_) is completed by the “Keshindo” (_??__??__??_) Chapter. As the sambhogikakaya-ksetra is the goal of Shinran, why does he use the “Keshindo” Chapter as the conclusion of this book? In this paper, I shall discuss Shinran's Concept of Buddhakaya—especially the Upaya-nairmanikaya-ksetra from the dialogue between the true and upaya ksetra.In the “Keshindo” Chapter, Shinran defines Amida-Buddha in the “Meditation Sutra” as nairmanikakaya in one hand. But on the other hand, Shinran names this Amida-Buddha as sambhogikakaya (_??__??__??_) for it is come from the absolute truly One. Anyway, there are two-fold meanings—true (sambhogikakaya) and upaya (nairmanikaya)—in Shinran's nairmanikaya-ksetra.Why does Shinran need to divide the true or upaya of the Buddha-ksetra so many folds? As is clear in his discussion of the logical sequence of the three vows of Amida (_??__??__??__??_). Shinran wants to show the true way of religion from the dialogue between the true and upaya. It is important to know that although the Buddha-ksetra is divided in two, the relationship of the two lands is always dynamic. So although the Buddha-ksetra in the “Meditation Sutra” is said to be nirmana ksetra, the meaning of this nirmana-world is truly deep beyond our realization.From Shinran's unique concept of humanity—that it is truly the sinner that Amida will save (_??__??__??__??_)—it is impossible for us to enter the true world. And basing on this concept of humanity, upaya is nothing but the abstractly true. So nairmanikaya-ksetra is exactly the only topos of rescue for all humans—containing Shinran himself. I think it is just for this reason that Shinran placed the “Keshindo” at the end of the Kyogyoshinsho as its conclusion.

Physically based simulation of Buddha Glory*

Abstract This paper proposes a novel method of photorealistic simulation of Glory, a natural phenomenon of great visual beauty which can be observed in the area of famous Buddhism Holy Lands in China. This phenomenon is mainly caused by back-scattering of water droplets in fog or cloud. To simulate the glory, we first calculate the spectral scatter intensity of glory rings using Mie scattering theory. We then present a new shadow model to determine the deformed shape of the head and body of Buddha within the glory ring. The affect of atmospheric parameters such as the solar elevation angles, the density and size of water droplet in fog or cloud on the shape and color of Glory is also calculated. For rendering, we adopt the method of path scattering integral to generate the whole attenuated scene of Glory. Compared with the photographs of real Glory displays, our synthetic results are quite satisfactory. Supported by the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China ...

Gyeong-heung's View of the Buddha's Body

Gyeong-heung's View of the Buddha's Body

The Significance of “Dharma-Dhaya” in Shantao's View of Buddha Body

The Significance of “Dharma-Dhaya” in Shantao's View of Buddha Body

The Idea of the Buddha Body and the Buddha Land in the Ôjoyoshu and Kyogyoshinsho

The Idea of the Buddha Body and the Buddha Land in the Ôjoyoshu and Kyogyoshinsho