Part three of the four-part series drawn from *The Awakened State: What Buddhist Enlightenment Actually Means*. This one is about the body.
There is an old habit of treating awakening as an escape from the body: leave the flesh behind, and something purer is waiting on the other side. The Lotus tradition does not read that way. Enlightenment is somatic. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind: the six roots become organs of Dharma-perception. The body that knows is not a different body. It is this body, seen clearly.
Two teachings carry that claim. The five eyes (五眼) are flesh, divine, wisdom, Dharma, and Buddha, and the fifth is not a sixth sense stacked on top of the others. It is the integration of the four beneath it. The three bodies (三身) are the manifestation body that is born and dies, the reward body seen in pure lands, and the Dharma-body, which is ultimate reality itself. And the Lotus says the physical body of the Buddha is the Dharma-body, seen correctly.
Which puts the whole question back where you are sitting right now.
The book is here:
Part four, on practice, goes up next Tuesday.
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