This is the Cuke Archives page for what’s being featured each day.
Our other two Zen sites: shunryusuzuki.com - all the transcripts, audio, film, photo archive
and ZMBM.net - for Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
New 2021: Audiobook for Crooked Cucumber & Zen Is Right Now: More Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki
Youtube Cuke Archives - Posts from here also appear on Facebook Cuke Archives
Core Books by and about Shunryu Suzuki -- People Index -- DC home -- DC Books
Cuke Podcasts - Instagram Cuke Archives - - Donate
For personal, environment, music, etc, go to Cuke nonZense Blog and cuke-annex
Search cuke blog 
Search Cuke.com

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Vairocana

 Q: What is the essence of the term “Vairocana”?

SR: Vairocana means Dharmakaya Buddha. I'll explain it in the next lecture.
----------------------------- Excerpt
 from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-10-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC  


Vairocana (also Mahāvairocana, Sanskrit: वैरोचन) is a celestial buddha who is often interpreted, in texts like the Avatamsaka Sutra, as the dharmakāyaof the historical Gautama Buddha. In East Asian Buddhism (Chinese, Korean and Japanese Buddhism), Vairocana is also seen as the embodiment of the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā. In the conception of the Five Tathagatas of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, Vairocana is at the centre and is considered a Primordial Buddha. - Wikipedia

DC comment: So Vairocana Buddha as depicted in various statues is dharmakaya, therefore formless. Don't tell the statues and paintings of Vairocana. And don't tell us either cause all that stuff is describing our true nature. Might freak us out.