Form That Is Not Form
The whole catalogue of form-bodies closes on the structure of the five skandhas themselves — form that is not form, because form is like lightning; feeling that is not feeling; volition that is not volition, because every karma is like an illusion — each named and negated in the same breath, before the passage closes on a form-body, at last, simply accomplished.
The Five Skandhas, Named and Negated
「離覺觀色身，一切眾生不能思察故；不究竟色身，除滅生死故；清淨色身，離如來覺觀故；如是色非色，色如電故；受非受，除滅世間苦受故；離一切想，分別一切眾生想故；出生行非行，諸業如幻故；離識境界，滿足菩薩智慧願故；空無所有，一切眾生語言斷故；色身成就，妙色不滅故。」
"...a body free of thought and reflection, because no sentient being is able to fathom it through thinking; a body not reaching an end, because it extinguishes birth-and-death; a pure body, because it departs from the tathāgata's own thought and reflection; such a form that is not form, because form is like lightning; feeling that is not feeling, because it extinguishes the worldly feeling of suffering; free of every notion, because it discerns every sentient being's own notion; giving rise to volition that is not volition, because every karma is like an illusion; departing from the state of consciousness, because it fulfills the bodhisattva's own vow of wisdom; empty, possessing nothing, because every sentient being's own language is cut off; the form-body accomplished, because sublime form is never extinguished."
This closing run maps directly onto the five skandhas that structure the whole of Buddhist psychology — form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness — naming each one in turn only to negate it in the same clause: form that is not form, feeling that is not feeling, volition that is not volition. This is the same move the Heart Sūtra makes in miniature, applied here not to a generic meditator's own experience but specifically to the body of a woman about to give birth to the Buddha — the most physically concrete moment this whole account has been building toward, described in language that dissolves the physical the instant it is named. The final line then reverses the whole movement one last time: after every negation, "the form-body accomplished, because sublime form is never extinguished" — emptiness itself, it turns out, is what secures the form-body's own final completion, rather than canceling it.
Part 200 In Progress
This immense catalogue of Māyā's own form-bodies — over fifty named forms across four parts — is now complete. Part 201 turns to Māyā manifesting in a specific range of these bodies before Sudhana's own eyes, appearing as daughters of kings and devas throughout every realm.
Continue to Part 201 →