r/chan

To keep a long story short I have a Christian background, live in the West and I know very little about Mahayana Buddhism Doctrine or Sutras.

TLDR; I'm looking for books on Dharmakaya because a monk told me to read a book about it in a dream, and I have not come across this concept before.

Longer story below...

I received a large painting of Guan Yin as a gift. I'd come across Guan Yin before and read a few stories but that was about it.

Being curious, I decided to research a bit and came across the Daily Recitations/Liturgy used in Chan that includes the Surangama mantra, the Great Compassion Mantra, and the Ten Small Mantras. I listened to them and started to recite them for a few days to see if they could help with some issues I was going through.

After a couple of days I had a dream.

I was in a Buddhist temple grounds with statues and buildings everywhere. It was also for communal use I believe. It was a fairly big campus like atmosphere.

I went to a classroom run by a Buddhist Monk, I was the only adult in a class of teenagers. There were questions given out and I tried to answer them. At the end of class I was given the assignment to read about something called "Dharmakaya", and that I needed to see the teacher after class and borrow the book on the subject.

I then proceeded to leave the temple grounds, and when I got to the gates I realized I had forgotten the book on "Dharmakaya" that had been assigned to me.

I returned to the classroom area but the area had become a place where a celebration or a feast was happening. All the members (monks and lay people) were setting up for a party or feast and the teacher (monk) couldn't be found. The classroom was also being repurposed for the feast.

So I left the temple grounds without the book. I recall waking up and going back to sleep but I was still looking for the book each time I went to sleep such as going into bookshops and so on looking for it.

The next day, I had that phrase, roughly "dharmakaya" stuck in my head but I had no idea what it meant.

In fact I wasn't sure if I heard correctly so I tried Googling "Dhamma Nikaya" and "Dhammakaya". Nothing jumped out so I left it thinking it was probably just a dream until (I think) the next day.

Then I Googled "Dharmakaya" and found it as a very profound concept in Mahayana Buddhism!

I was blown away by this as I had never heard about this idea before.

As a result of all this I wanted to ask if anyone knows of any good books on the subject of Dharmakaya as this is new to me.

​

​The koan is a unique product of the various tradition.

Through koan study, we learn to switch between the everyday level and the spiritual level.

But what exactly are these levels?

Spirituality refers to the essential reality, what lies beneath the surface in the mind.

At both levels, life is essentially about one thing: being happy.

Koan study teaches you to distinguish between the daily pursuit of happiness and the spiritual pursuit of happiness.

Daily happiness usually represents short-term gratification, while spiritual happiness focuses on the long term.

A koan helps us gain an eye for the more essential aspects of our search, allowing us to detach from the mundane chase. While the daily search is often a hunt for pleasure, the spiritual search is about the capacity to enjoy.

Happiness is not the same as pleasure; it is the ability to enjoy all the challenges that life offers. Koan study teaches us to hear the melody of the spiritual within the everyday.

​To illustrate this, consider an example from a sesshin location I once visited in Okinawa, I had prepared a koan: "What do I hear, what do I smell, what do I feel?"

I had seen photos of the beautiful green surroundings, but I hadn't realized that a highway ran right past the site.

The sound of cars was constant. Initially, the question "What do I hear?" only drew the noise of the traffic deeper into the meditation room.

On the first day, everyone heard only the cars. By the second day, people began to notice the birds.

By the third day, they heard almost exclusively the birds.

This beautifully demonstrates the ability to switch levels.

It doesn't mean the participants could no longer hear the cars; rather, they became capable of hearing what they chose to hear. They developed the ability to focus on what contributed to their happiness, choosing birdsong over traffic, which left them feeling much calmer and more fulfilled.

​This ability to switch levels can be used to move toward whichever perspective is most functional for you at a given moment.

If one were in prison, for instance, it might not be functional to dwell on how wonderful life is on the outside. Instead, it is more functional to think about how to make the best of the situation, perhaps through deep meditation or writing a book. I have heard that a third of long-term prisoners develop a prison psychosis because they feel the walls closing in on them.

However, I believe that for someone with Zen and Chan training, the chance of such a psychosis is much smaller. Takes time to learn to think what you want to think.

While prison is an extreme example, many people encounter figurative walls in their social lives or careers and do not know how to escape them.

In any set of circumstances, it is highly functional to be able to direct your thoughts toward what is beneficial for you.

As Yamato Fuji, my direct experience is to see this mental flexibility not as a denial of reality, but as the ultimate mastery over one's own internal landscape.

Gassho,

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