The Buddha said to Subhuti, “All forms are illusory; if you see that forms are not characteristics, then you see the Realised One.”
Commentary:
Here the Buddha tells a more concrete way to recognise the true-Self. ‘If you see that forms are not characteristics, then you see the Realised One’ means that when you see a flower, for instance, if you see that the flower is not a flower, when you see a person, if you see that the person is not a person, that is, if you see that whatever you see and hear is not what you have thought and believed it is, then you can see the true-Buddha, the Realised One, or the true-Self. Put more easily, if we can see everything without attaching any words to it, we can see the real Buddha instead of being deluded by the illusions of the physical features of the historical Buddha. We should know that the real Buddha is originally formless and nameless and that he neither was born nor passed away. Identifying the Buddha with any form is idolatry, which is to dwell on a form and to be deluded by an illusion. This is why ancient masters would say that we should kill the Buddha if we meet him.
What matters here is that the way to see the real Buddha explained above is the way to see ourselves. We should see ourselves in the same way we see the Buddha. The true-Self is the essence of not only the historical Buddha but also everything, including us. Being able to see the real Buddha means being able to see everything as the Buddha. It also implies to see the essence of our being, to realise that we are the eternal and perfect Buddha.
Student: “How can I see the Buddha?”
Master: “How can’t you see Him?”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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