It is not green or yellow or red or white, long or short or square or round. It is not a scent, not a flavor, not a texture, not a mental object. When we search for it we cannot find it, but we cannot say it does not exist.  It creates all worlds and all realms, but we cannot say it exists. It is detached from conditioned thoughts and discriminations, from all words and characteristics, but conditioned thoughts and discriminations and worlds and characteristics do not have any separate identity apart from it.

Essentially, absolute reality is detached from all characteristics, but merged with all phenomena. Being detached from characteristics, it is formless, and being merged with all phenomena, it gives them all their forms. For lack of an alternative, we impose on it the name "absolute reality" [i.e. Mind, Real Mark, Buddha Nature].

The essence of Absolute Reality is neither quiescent nor aware, but it is both quiescent and yet ever shining with awareness, both shining with awareness and yet ever quiescent. In that it is shining with awareness but quiescent, it is called the Land of Eternally Quiescent Light. In that it is quiescent but shining with awareness, it is called the pure Dharmakaya (Dharma Body). Aware quiescence is called the Dharmakaya, the Dharma Body of all the Buddhas. Quiescent awareness is called the Sambhogakaya, the Reward Body.

​[For the Buddhas] quiescence and awareness are not two, bodies and lands are not two, what is inherent and what is cultivated are not two, true essence and responsive function are not two -- everything is absolute reality. Reality and appearances are neither two nor not two.

Therefore, the essence of reality as a whole acts as both the environment that surrounds sentient beings and as their very bodies. It acts as both the Dharma Body and the Reward Body of the Buddhas. It acts as both self and others.

Thus the one who speaks the sutra and the one who is spoken of, the Buddhas that can deliver sentient beings and the sentient beings who are delivered, the ability to believe and that which is believed in, the ability to take vows and that which is vowed, the ability to concentrate on the Buddha-name and the Buddha-name which is concentrated upon, the ability to be born in the Pure Land and birth in the Pure Land itself, the ability to praise the Buddhas and the Buddhas who are praised -- all of these are the imprint of the "true seal" of Absolute Reality. In other words, the True Mind (Bodhi Mind) of sentient beings is the essence of all Mahayana sutras.

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