For further corroboration of this view let us cite at random from a Mahâyâna sutra:[99]
“With one great loving heart
The thirsty desires of all beings he quencheth with coolness refreshing;
With compassion, of all doth he think,
Which like space knows no bounds;
Over the world’s all creation
With no thought of particularity he revieweth.“With a great heart compassionate and loving,
All sentient beings by him are embraced;
With means (upâya) which are pure, free from stain, and all excellent,
He doth save and deliver all creatures innumerable.
“With unfathomable love and with compassion
All creations caressed by him universally;
Yet free from attachment his heart is.“As his compassion is great and is infinite,
Bliss unearthly on every being he confereth,
And himself showeth all over the universe;
He’ll not rest till all Buddhahood truly attains.”
Later Mahâyânists’ view of the Dharmakâya.
The above has been quoted almost exclusively from the so-called sûtra literature of Mahâyâna Buddhism, which is distinguished from the other religio-philosophical treatises of the school, because the sûtras are considered to be the accounts of Buddha himself as recorded by his immediate disciples.[100] Let us now see by way of further elucidation what views were held concerning the Dharmakâya by such writers as Asanga, Vasubandhu, etc.
We read in the General Treatise on Mahâyânism by Asanga and Vasubandhu the following statement:
“When the Bodhisattvas think of the Dharmakâya, how have they to picture it to themselves?
“Briefly stated, they will think of the Dharmakâya by picturing to themselves its seven characteristics, which constitute the faultless virtues and essential functions of the Kâya. (1) Think of the free, unrivaled, unimpeded activity of the Dharmakâya, which is manifested in all beings; (2) Think of the eternality of all perfect virtues in the Dharmakâya; (3) Think of its absolute freedom from all prejudice, intellectual and affective; (4) Think of those spontaneous activities that uninterruptedly emanate from the will of the Dharmakâya; (5) Think of the inexhaustible wealth, spiritual and physical, stored in the Body of the Dharma; (6) Think of its intellectual purity which has no stain of onesidedness; (7) Think of the earthly works achieved for the salvation of all beings by the Tathâgatas who are reflexes of the Dharmakâya.”
As regards the activity of the Dharmakâya, which is shown in every Buddha’s work of salvation, Asanga enumerates five forms of operation: (1) It is shown in his power of removing evils which may befall us in the course of life, though the Buddha is unable to cure any physical defects which we may have, such as blindness, deafness, mental aberration, etc. (2) It is shown in his irresistible spiritual domination over all evil-doers, who, base as they are, cannot help doing some good if they ever come in the presence of the Buddha. (3) It is shown in his power of destroying various unnatural and irrational methods of salvation which are practiced by followers of asceticism, hedonism, or Ishvaraism. (4) It is shown in his power of curing those diseased minds that believe in the reality, permanency, and indivisibility of the ego-soul, that is, in the pudgalavâda. (5) It is shown in his inspiring influence over those Bodhisattvas who have not yet attained to the stage of immovability as well as over those Çrâvakas whose faith and character are still in a state of vacillation.
The Freedom of the Dharmakâya.
Those spiritual influences over all beings of the Dharmakâya through the enlightened mind of a Buddha, which we have seen above as stated by Asanga, are fraught with religious significance. According to the Buddhist view, those spiritual powers everlastingly emanating from the Body of Dharma have no trace of human elaboration or constrained effort, but they are a spontaneous overflow from its immanent necessity, or, as I take it, from its free will. The Dharmakâya does not make any conscious, struggling efforts to shower upon all sentient creatures its innumerable merits, benefits, and blessings. If there were in it any trace of elaboration, that would mean a struggle within itself of divers tendencies, one trying to gain ascendency over another. And it is apparent that any struggle and its necessary ally, compulsion, are incompatible with our conception of the highest religious reality. Absolute spontaneity and perfect freedom is one of those necessary attributes which our religious consciousness cannot help ascribing to its object of reverence. Buddhists therefore repeatedly affirm that the activity of the Dharmakâya is perfectly free from all effort and coercion, external and internal. Its every act of creation or salvation or love emanates from its own free will, unhampered by any struggling exertion which characterises the doings of mankind. This free will which is divine, standing in such a striking contrast with our own “free will” which is human and at best very much limited, is called by the Buddhists the Dharmakâya’s “Purvapranidhânabala.”[101]