30 The Buddha
deeds of a buddha are motivated only by generosity, loving kind-
ness, and wisdom. A buddha can think, say, and do nothing that
is not based on these. This is the effect or 'fruit' of what hap-
pened as he sat in meditation beneath the tree of awakening.
The bodies of the Buddha
One early Buddhist text puts it that the Buddha is 'one whose
body is Dharma, whose body is Brahma; who has become
Dharma, who has become Brahma'.^38 Now dharma and brahma
are two technical terms pregnant with emotional and religious
'meaning. Among other things Dharma is 'the right way to
behave', 'the perfect way to act'; hence it is also the teaching of
the Buddha since by following the teaching of the Buddha one
follows the path that ends in Dharma or perfect action. We have
already come across the term Brahma denoting a divine being
(p. 24), but in Buddhist texts brahma is also used to denote or
describe the qualities of such divine beings; thus brahma. con-
veys something of the sense of the English 'divine', something
of the sense of 'holy' and something of the sense of 'perfec-
tion'. Like the English word 'body' the Sanskrit/Pali word kiiya
means both a physical body and figuratively a collection or
aggregate of something-as in 'a body of opinion'. To say that the
Buddha is dharma-kiiya means that he is at once the embodiment
of Dharma and the collection or sum of all those qualities-
non-attachment, loving kindness, wisdom, etc.-that constitute
Dharma. Thus the nature of a buddha does not inhere primarily
in his visible human body-it is not that which makes him a
buddha-but in his perfected spiritual qualities.
Another passage of the ancient texts relates how the monk
Vakkali was lying seriously ill on his sick-bed; when the Buddha
arrives Vakkali explains to him that, although he has no sense
of failure in his conduct, he is troubled by the fact that because
of his illness he has not been able to come and visit the Buddha.
The Buddha responds: 'Enough, Vakkali. What point is there in
your seeing this decaying body? He who sees Dharma sees me;
he who sees me sees Dharma.'^39
This kind of thinking gives rise in developed Buddhist
thought to various theories of 'the bodies of the Buddha'. Such
