迦葉菩薩白佛言 世尊 如來之身 是金剛身 非雜食身 世尊 如來之身 常住不變 非無常身 佛告迦葉 如是如是 如來之身 即是法身 非世間身 金剛不壞 超諸有爲
jiā yè pú sà bái fó yán shì zūn rú lái zhī shēn shì jīn gāng shēn fēi zá shí shēn shì zūn rú lái zhī shēn cháng zhù bù biàn fēi wú cháng shēn fó gào jiā yè rú shì rú shì rú lái zhī shēn jí shì fǎ shēn fēi shì jiān shēn jīn gāng bù huài chāo zhū yǒu wéi
Key Message
The body of the Tathāgata is not the physical body maintained by food but the body of truth itself — indestructible and without cessation.
▸This is the scene in which Kāśyapa Bodhisattva asks the Buddha: 'The body of the Tathāgata is the vajra body, not the body sustained by food.
This is the scene in which Kāśyapa Bodhisattva asks the Buddha: 'The body of the Tathāgata is the vajra body, not the body sustained by food.' The body sustained by food means the ordinary body of living beings maintained through nourishment. The Buddha confirms with 'just so, just so' (如是如是) and declares that the Tathāgata's body is the Dharmakāya, not a body of the mundane world — 'indestructible as vajra' (金剛不壞), 'transcending all conditioned phenomena' (超諸有爲). This chapter proclaims that the Tathāgata's body is not the physical body subject to birth, aging, illness, and death, but the eternal body of the Dharma — and that the Tathāgata's Dharmakāya does not cease even after nirvāṇa.