Mapping the Trikaya
Once Upon a Time...
In June 2017, I co-taught Practicing Art/Practicing Dharma at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, MA with Stephen Batchelor. I was living in a lovely little house on the edge of the woods, not far from a litter of fox kits and their mother. Each day, I made one three by seven foot drawing on tarpaper, using oil pastels, exploring one of the aspects of the Trikaya, or triple-body of the Awakening Ones (basically everyone giving themselves half a chance).
These are, roughly:
Each day, someone from the retreat community would trace the outline of my body onto the tarpaper. Each day, working outdoors on the edge of the woods, I would make my drawing. Community of all beings in the beginning - my body traced by a friend in the morning. Community of all beings in the middle - caterpillars, ticks, and shadows walking on my drawing in the afternoon. Community of all beings in the end - a procession brings the drawing into group practice at the close of day.
These drawings also connect with early Buddhist representations of the Buddha's footprints: not the body directly, but a trace of the space around, in, and of it.
These are, roughly:
- the Nirmanakaya, or body of ancestors and descendants, aka physical body, manifestation body, metamorphic body. this is our race / class / gender body - the body of this particular moment in biology / history / society
- the Sambhogakaya, or enjoyment body of subtle energy - this is the parts of ourselves that cannot be explained by the above - what we feel drawn to / repelled by, the felt sense of ourselves and our emotions
- the Dharmakaya, or body of unobstructed spacious awareness - show me your face from before your parents were born - this is our participation in the ground of being - the unborn & undying
- there's a fourth body: the unalienable union, fulfillment, and integration of the first three. what would it be like to own our historical selves / our energetic selves / our emptiness-vastness selves, and live from all these layers simultaneously? that's called the Svabhavikakaya
Each day, someone from the retreat community would trace the outline of my body onto the tarpaper. Each day, working outdoors on the edge of the woods, I would make my drawing. Community of all beings in the beginning - my body traced by a friend in the morning. Community of all beings in the middle - caterpillars, ticks, and shadows walking on my drawing in the afternoon. Community of all beings in the end - a procession brings the drawing into group practice at the close of day.
These drawings also connect with early Buddhist representations of the Buddha's footprints: not the body directly, but a trace of the space around, in, and of it.