Dharmakaya

2025, October, Issue 169

Bright!

Blazing brighter than a trillion suns,

It’s that obvious,

beyond our crazy obsessions,

beyond this manic delusion;

It’s right there!

Look at the sky!

Look at the parting clouds!

It’s always been here,

Not there! Here in every essence of your being!

It’s blazing like a trillion suns in our heart center!

Our mind chooses to ignore the obvious!

Beyond our habits of mind, our obsessions,

Utter clarity beyond these clouds,

in these clouds, through these clouds!

We form ideas, we form beliefs

around our dark hearts,

These storms we’ve cast as somehow real,

In our slumber, how could we have missed that

obvious condition beyond subject and object?

It has been pointed-out by great masters,

and we miss it entirely!

This expansive infinite everything beyond our thick skulls,

This all-pervasive brilliant bright illumination

encompassing our entire reflection,

our entire reality that has sprung from

Timeless Luminosity,

and even this illusion of darkness cannot be possible

without unending bright awareness,

knowing that none of these shadows,

these chains that bind us

can ever be real.

A poem by Robert Aho © 2025

Even though Dharmakaya is far greater than our own universe, even though it pervades every moment of our confused existence, even though we continually catch glimpses of that amazing brilliance, we miss it entirely. We utilize belief and thought to grasp at it, somehow thinking that we will know just what that is, if only we could just form a profound definition, if only we could pound it into our limited point of view with some sort of thesis. We don’t see the irony of this, precisely because we are wandering and confused, habituated by grasping and ignorance.

There is utterly no way whatsoever that I can tell you just what Dharmakaya is, because it is beyond both subject and object. It cannot be limited in any way, certainly not by words or a puny human point of view. Dharmakaya is who we really are, and the only way to know Dharmakaya is to realize the Nature of Mind. If you utilize mind to grasp at this notion of Dharmakaya, you will be greatly disappointed. Dharmakaya can only be understood, in the least, if we open our heart and mind completely, directly exposing ourselves to our ineffable brilliance that has always been just there.

If we seek an answer to this riddle of cyclic existence, it is certain that we will be greatly disappointed. Dharmakaya cannot be contained by an answer. It is an open-hearted discovery that cannot be described. We cannot create an accurate model. Any attempt to understand just how an infinite array of sleeping Buddhas could have been trapped here for all eternity will only lead to greater confusion. All we can do is awaken. Absolutely anything else that we try will only lead to great disappointment.

It’s like seeing a speck of dust floating in a very intensely bright light. This speck of dust cannot escape that bright light for some reason, even though it seems quite separate. If we were to examine that speck of dust, we would see that the light is bright enough to shine through and around that dust, even illuminating the shadow that the dust casts. This idea of darkness becomes a certain joke in such an obvious way that it becomes unfathomable that there could be little beings on that dust who complain and whine about being there, not knowing about this brilliant light. This is certainly a very sad situation; and, yet, our entire universe, as well as the multiverse, is just such a speck of dust, filled with an infinite number of beings who are all having a very bad day, an anxiety ridden existence, not knowing that they are really the light, or that they could be freed by a certain realization. And, here we are as well in life, fretting about our existence, not knowing about that amazing light, as we wander upon an even smaller speck of dust.

When we sound the AH, opening our eyes, opening our mouth, practicing Guruyoga in this way, we are increasing our capacity to know the ineffable in a way that goes beyond any restriction, such as time, space, belief, concept or intellect. We are making it possible to open our heart and mind to the ineffable existence that we keep ignoring, or pushing away, or even grasping.

See? We have this ability to awaken, and it is right here. All we need do is remain at ease and recognize that which cannot be given to us by any other. We must find our way to enlightenment. We must find a way to go beyond all these things of mind that keep us distracted and confused.

In order to awaken, we must recognize the Nature of Mind, stop fixating on this dark irrelevant speck of dust that seems to envelop our every moment. We need to stop being obsessed with an embroiled world that cannot help us in the least. We need to find a way, any way, to become what we have always been without realizing it.

Our own aspiration to awaken is Supreme! It’s time. We have much greater things to attend to than this ridiculous obsession we call cyclic existence!

Awaken!

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho