The Body Is Not the Buddha
Practice Grove Bodhisattva's hymn moves from the earth-element's own emptiness to a direct teaching on what the Buddha's body actually is: not a body at all, but the Dharma itself — and whoever sees every dharma's own nature as already nirvāṇa has already seen the Tathāgata.
Practice Grove Bodhisattva's Hymn
爾時，行林菩薩承佛威力，普觀十方而說頌言：
At that time, relying upon the Buddha's own awesome power, Practice Grove Bodhisattva universally surveyed the ten directions and then spoke a verse, saying:
「譬如十方界，一切諸地種，
自性無所有，無處不周遍。
佛身亦如是，普遍諸世界，
種種諸色相，無主無來處。
但以諸業故，說名為眾生，
亦不離眾生，而有業可得。
業性本空寂，眾生所依止，
普作眾色相，亦復無來處。
如是諸色相，業力難思議，
了達其根本，於中無所見。
佛身亦如是，不可得思議，
種種諸色相，普現十方剎。
身亦非是佛，佛亦非是身，
但以法為身，通達一切法。
若能見佛身，清淨如法性，
此人於佛法，一切無疑惑。
若見一切法，本性如涅槃，
是則見如來，究竟無所住。
若修習正念，明了見正覺，
無相無分別，是名法王子。」
"Just as, throughout the worlds of the ten directions, every kind of earth-element there is has no own-nature to it at all, and yet there is no place at all it fails to fill and pervade — so too is the Buddha's own body, universally present throughout every world; every kind of form and mark it takes has no owner and no place it comes from.
It is simply because of karma that something is called a living being, and yet karma, too, is never found apart from living beings themselves. Karma's own nature is originally empty and quiescent, and yet living beings rely upon and abide within it; it universally produces every kind of form and mark, and likewise has no place it comes from either.
Such forms and marks as these, the power of karma, are inconceivable; thoroughly comprehending their very root, within it there is nothing at all to be seen. The Buddha's own body, too, is just the same, impossible to grasp through thought; every kind of form and mark, universally manifested throughout the lands of the ten directions.
The body is not the Buddha, and the Buddha is not the body; it is only the Dharma that is taken as his body, penetrating every dharma entirely. Whoever is able to see the Buddha's own body as pure, just like the very nature of dharmas, that person, toward the buddha-dharma, has no doubt at all in anything.
Whoever sees that the very nature of every dharma is originally just like nirvāṇa, this is then to see the Tathāgata, ultimately abiding nowhere at all. Whoever cultivates and practices right mindfulness, clearly and distinctly seeing the Fully Awakened One, without any mark and without any discrimination — this is what is called a prince of the Dharma-king."
"The body is not the Buddha, and the Buddha is not the body; it is only the Dharma that is taken as his body" (身亦非是佛，佛亦非是身，但以法為身) is one of the clearest early statements in the sūtra of the Dharma-body teaching (法身, dharmakāya) that would become central to later Mahāyāna doctrine — the idea that a buddha's true identity is not the physical form seen by disciples but the Dharma itself, fully realized and embodied.
Part 126 Complete
This closes Part 126. Chapter 20 continues in Part 127 with Awakening Grove Bodhisattva's hymn, the most quoted verse in this whole chapter.