nirmāṇakāya – Page 2

Here is this morning’s dream had between 4 and 8 AM.

The dream opens in Japan specifically Hokkaido. I am indoors in a hectic setting, a kind of big event hall. I am competing in a game which is part physical plane sprint racing and part abstract computer intelligence game. Each round is set off by a buzzer and the contestants have to make their way to the finish line within the context of the duality. In the booth next to me is a tall slim Japanese man. The buzzer sounds and the race begins. In both scenarios he just beats me. I come second in the race.

We both go over the left of the finish line in the computer world and in the thing which holds up the finish flag are the positional pins. We each select a tiny golden micro-pin which has the positional letter. My pin ends in a golden 2, his a golden 1. I place the pin in my shirt pocket on the left hand side of my chest. The race repeats several times and each time the result is the same. I soon have quite a collection of golden two pins in my shirt pocket. The “competition” finishes.

I am then walking through a busy brightly lit mall. I am in a food court in which various Japanese food outlets are selling street food. The atmosphere is pungent and very lively. The food on offer is highly coloured and from around the globe. I cannot decide. I walk over to a burger joint and a Japanese woman asks me what I would like. It is her job to serve me and be of assistance. She is very friendly, lively and with excellent English {UK}. I say that I would like a small burger and fries and for her to surprise me. She brings my food over together with a large bottle of top-end Japanese spring water. She sits next to me and helps me to eat.

I go back to my rooms; they are executive and above parr. I am unsure as to what to do next. I have no return flight. So, I start to look up flights from Sapporo to Queensland Australia. The Idea being that I land in Townsville or Brisbane and buy a second hand car to drive to the Isa {Mt Isa}.

I pause and take a stroll. Outside in the car park is my ex-wife. She is in a beat up camper van and I can hear her snoring. The van is a mess. I go back inside. She knocks on the door. I open it. She asks how I am coping with the water. Just fine. She says that she had problems getting served at the food court and did not like the tap water. I say that she probably had problems communicating. With the Japanese it is very important to listen. If you don’t listen carefully to what they say they consider you rude and vulgar. I say that listening was never one of her skills. I point to the bottle of top-end spring water on the side and say that she can take it back to her camper van, her brumby. This she does…

I hear the song from Men at Work, I come from the land down under, “travelling in a beat up brumby”.

I decide against going to Queensland.

Instead, I must take a road trip. I see in my minds eye a map showing Hokkaido and Sapporo with mainland Asia and Vladivostok. I know that I can easily get a boat to Vladivostok and that I could drive from there to Wiltshire. I resolve in the dream to look up a route on AA route planner when I get up. I know that I must go via Mongolia and that it will be a long trip.

Here is AA Router planner route Vladivostok to Calais. Distance ~ 8000 miles.

–

I start out on my route and part the way along in or near Mongolia I am given two white plaques of an irregular shape. Phonetically these plates speak in the dream. They say, “Mon yet {yat} Dzong” and “Sprul yet Tsaay” I can see the associated Tibetan script but cannot associate it directly with the phonetics.

The dream ends

————————————–

Sprul

The concept of tulpas has origins in the Buddhist nirmāṇakāya, translated in Tibetan as sprul-pa (སྤྲུལ་པ་): the earthly bodies that a buddha manifests in order to teach those who have not attained nirvana. The western understanding of tulpas was developed by twentieth-century European mystical explorers, who interpreted the idea independently of Buddhahood

——-

1) Trulku (in Tibetan: sprul sku) — Literally the “emanation body” of a buddha. In a Tibetan context, a trulku (often given the epithet rinpoché, “precious one”) denotes the chosen reincarnation of a lama of high spiritual stature. A trulku usually inherits his (or her) predecessor’s prestige, wealth, and institutional seat. Important trulku lineages include the Dalai and Panchen Lamas and the Karmapas, who originated the tradition in the thirteenth century

2) sprul sku (སྤྲུལ་སྐུ) (Tibetan; in Sanskrit: nirmāṇakāya) — (lit. “Emanation body”) — Within the compass of the formbody, the aspect of a buddha that appears for the sake of ordinary sentient beings. A single buddha may manifest multiple emanation bodies, which may be in human, animal, or inanimate form. The “historical Buddha” Śākyamuni is generally regarded as an emanation body. The Tibetan term for emanation body, trulku, is used to designate a deliberately reincarnated lama

Sprul

སྤྲུལ་ send forth an emanation; emanate; emanation

————————–

Mon

མོན་

Bhutan; Mon, a district in Tibet

Mön

Mon. Name for lands to the south and southwest of Tibet

Dzong

Dzong (Tib. རྫོང་, Wyl. rdzong) — literally a ‘fortress’, the equivalent of a monastery in Bhutan.

—————————————————————-

Le dzong du Bhoutan est un monastère-forteresse bouddhiste caractéristique du Bhoutan.

Les premiers dzongs furent construits dans le pays dès le XIIe siècle, mais leur âge d’or fut la première moitié du XVIIe siècle qui vit le renforcement défensif du pays par le shabdrung ou grand lama Ngawang Namgyal (1594-1651), l’unificateur du Bhoutan moderne.

If you type various versions of this question into Google you see that there are people discussing it on line. I have even seen articles on Buddhism which states that the goal is to achieve nirvāṇa. Buddhism does not have KPIs and personal development planning, nor does your line manager tear you off a strip if you don’t achieve your goals.

I’ll speculate whoever considers nirvāṇa a goal is a long way indeed from said goal. He is in a gaol of Western thinking.

In various school of thought nirvāṇa is when the causal vehicle {Soul or reincarnating Jiva} has been blown off. This means there is no requirement to reincarnate, a strictly human thing. Humans are “bound” to the wheel of rebirth. Someone, some being, who has done that, nirvāṇa, is strictly speaking no longer human. In the context at death the being who has attained nirvāṇa achieves the state of parinirvāṇa at the dissolution of the meaty incarnate form. Thereafter “they” remain formless.

We could get into the gender debate about pronouns. What pronouns do you use for some entity which has no body, no observable physical plane presence? What is the correct pronoun for a fully enlightened Buddha? It?

The problem I have with enlightenment as a concept is that is enlightenment an absolute or a relative term? It might be said that someone got enlightenment, does that mean that they are a fully enlightened Buddha or does it mean that they are little less heavy than before. They have attained a quantum of enlightenment, a bit, one step further up the ladder. They are lighter, less dark and thereby enlightened. To progress one gains enlightenment in a stepwise fashion, realisation by realisation. At nirvāṇa the being is lighter because it no longer has a causal vehicle or personality, notions of self have dissolved. It is enlightened, unburdened.

There is the concept of returning high attainment Bodhisattvas, who on death put off the attainment of parinirvāṇa and come back of their own free will to teach. Because they have no causal vehicle, they create a nirmāṇakāya emanation for such a purpose. If I understand it correctly there may be many of these in the Tulku tradition. Arhats can be seen as selfish because they do not come back. But that is a transference of human personality onto someone who has no self. I have seen it prejudiced that Bodhisattvas are good, and Arhats not so. Human folly, methinks.

In esoteric thinking the end of the causal vehicle comes at the fourth initiation. If one cross references, this is nirvāṇa or blowing off. If I understand it correctly this phenomenon is associated often with physical plane death {but not always}. One gets nirvāṇa and sharpish thereafter parinirvāṇa. In that school of thinking there are a few more stages of development, the other initiations, after doing what Siddartha did in getting planetary nirvāṇa.

One might rephrase the question, “how many fully enlightened beings are there?”

In the esoteric school of thought the fourth degree initiate goes on to take the fifth and become what some call masters. This happens, according to my reading, relatively soon.

I think most people would struggle to envision or envisage a “living” awareness or consciousness in the absence of a physical plane body. So, people invent worlds and dimensions or abodes where they might picture some enveloping form even if that be nebulous. The inventions are inspired by life on earth. Being superstitious people like signs and miracles as circumstantial evidence or proof of nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa. There must be a rainbow or a comet. If it is a wholly natural part of evolution why would this happen? It is kind of no big deal. There is a desire for sanctity and holiness where they may just be a natural evolutionary process.

The question itself seeks to quantify and scale because people like to compare, to play top trumps.

“My God is better and more real than yours”, being a root of many wars.

Going a step further “are” implies existence or being. Can something exist if there is no form, no measurable lump of meat. If something is formless, is it?

Instead of quantifying we may now rephrase. “Are there enlightened beings?” “Do they exist?”

“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it!”

Astrobiology and astrochemistry are looking for life in a chemical-biological entity with a physical existence measurable by modern instrumentation. The assumption being that life can only exist in some kind of form, or particularly a corporeal form no matter how small. Science requires a form {and perhaps reproductive urge} as a basic component of life and its definition.

A formless Buddha after paranirvāṇa would not technically be alive according to human definition.

So maybe according to science enlightened beings do not exist.

The answer is therefore zero and not 42….

Which poses the ancillary question does, zero exist or not?

Tag: nirmāṇakāya

Hokkaido – Golden Pins – Tibetan Phrases – Road Trip – Dream 07-02-2025

How Many Fully Enlightened People Are There?