[A]ny individual is a Tathagata who realizes the universal Dhammata of the universe, not only in his ideas, but in his life, and lives the life of the universal self. So long as, and so far as, he regards himself as separate from others, every individual is only a partial, and therefore imperfect, manifestation of his own real nature (dhammata), while every one is destined to attain the height, or depth, of his own true self in communion with all others, by virtue of the basic unity of the fundamental Dhammata.

The Dhamma is the truth revealed by Buddha, the Lord of Truth; yet he is not the creator of it. We are enlightened by the truths taught by him, but we can be thus enlightened because our existence and nature are based on the same Dhammata that is found in Buddha himself.

Another group of categories, to explain life in group (dhdtu) is threefold: the stage on which a certain group of beings play their role and manifest their nature; the constituents which supply materials and components to the stage; and the individuals making up the realm.

Vacuity, according to Tendai, means nothing but the non-being of a particular existence apart from the universal Dhammata. We speak of this or that thing or substance, quality or condition, and think it to be a reality, in and by itself. Nothing is more erroneous than this, because we know that nothing in this world, visible or tangible, exists without causal nexus. It is a Dhamma, a thing or condition, because it is a manifestation of the Dhamma, the law of causation. Vacuity does not mean the voidness of any existence in itself, but vanity of the view that sees in it a reality apart from the fundamental Dhammata.

As to the relation between the particular and the universal, the case of Buddha is not only an example, but the typical representative. He was born as a human being, passed through mental struggles, and finally attained Buddhahood, and lived the fifty years of his ministry as the Truth-revealer. This is an actual life of a particular person, and no one can deny its facts, except the docetists, against whom the orthodox Buddhists took a united stand. Yet he was a Buddha, because he was enlightened in cosmic truths and realized the universal nature of Buddhahood, which is called Bodhi, or Enlightenment. He is Bodhi incarnate, so to speak, and Bodhi is the universal and fundamental nature (dhammata) of the spiritual existence, which is pre-existent to appearance of particular Buddhas, and the a priori basis of their attainment.

[T]he Buddhist conception of reality is the existence in which the universal nature of existence is realized in the enlightened mind which is the realization of the all-embracing fellowship. It rejects reality apart from this personal enlightenment; it rejects an enlightenment in a secluded self — the former being externalism and the latter transcendentalism. But both aspects of being embraced and “aufgehoben” in the realization of the universal Dhammata. In short, the true conception of reality is brought to light only in the unity of Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.

The epithet “Tathagata” is an adequate expression of the relation between the universal Bodhi and particular Buddhas. Buddha’s personal life is a particular phenomenon, and the significance of his Buddhahood is lost, is a vacuity, when considered apart from the Truth he has attained and revealed to us. Yet the Truth (tatha) is a mere abstraction, a dead name, unless there appears a Tathagata in concrete human life. The true reality in the person of Buddha consists in the dignity of the Tathagata attained by a particular person, in virtue of the universal Bodhi which is the essential condition of his communion with the Buddhas of the past and of the future.

The particular derives its being from the universal nature of things, while the universal could not fully realize its true nature without manifesting itself in a particular. Both are real, but either by itself is imperfectly real. The Middle Path consists in uniting the two aspects of existence, universal and particular, and in seeing therein the true reality.

The Trinity of Buddha’s person, however, is not limited to him alone, but in each of us is inherent the corresponding Trinity, or, as we may conveniently express it, the unity of the universal foundation and the particular manifestation. A concrete human being is a reality, but his full meaning is based on humanity in general. There is a man, and he is the man who would embody in his person the essential nature of humanity, not in the abstract, but concretely. The universal “humanity” is the “Truth-body” of every human being, and his life under particular conditions is his “Condescension-body,” while his own self-consciousness, and the influence that he means to exert upon his fellow-beings constitute his “Bliss-body.” In short, the unity of the universal man and the particular man is the reality of man.