What exactly does it mean to follow the Dharma and not the person? Isn’t the Dharma the teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha in the sūtras, and therefore the teaching of a person? For that matter, there is the question of whether the sūtras, particularly the Mahāyāna sūtras, are in fact verbatim records of the Buddha’s teaching. So how can we know whether we are following the Dharma or just some person’s opinion, whether the person of the Buddha or the opinion of some anonymous person(s) attributed to the Buddha? Though perhaps a bit circular, the Buddha’s reply to the question asked of him by Mahāprajāpatī as to what is the Dharma may be worth considering.

Then the Gautamī, Mahāprajāpatī, approached the Lord; having approached, having greeted the Lord, she stood at a respectful distance. As she was standing at a respectful distance, the Gautamī, Mahāprajāpatī said to the Lord: “Lord, it were well if the Lord would teach me the Dharma in brief so that I, having heard the Lord’s Dharma, might live alone, aloof, zealous, ardent, self-resolute. “

“Whatever are the states, of which you, Gautamī, may know: these states lead to passion, not to passionlessness, they lead to bondage, not to the absence of bondage, they lead to the piling up (of rebirth), not to the absence of piling up, they lead to wanting much, not to wanting little, they lead to discontent, not to contentment, they lead to sociability, not to solitude, they lead to indolence, not to the putting forth of energy, they lead to difficulty in supporting oneself, not to ease in supporting oneself – you should know definitely, Gautamī: this is not Dharma, this is not discipline, this is not the Teacher’s instruction. But whatever are the states of which you, Gautamī, may know: these states lead to passionlessness, not to passion … (the opposite of the preceding) … they lead to ease in supporting oneself, not to difficulty in supporting oneself – you should know definitely, Gautamī: this is Dharma, this is discipline, this is the Teacher’s instruction.” (Horner 1992 volume V, p. 359 adapted)

The Dharma, then, is that which leads away from further deluded entanglement in our attachments and aversions for conditioned phenomena and toward liberation, the unconditioned. The Dharma is not the Dharma because the Buddha taught it. The Buddha is the Buddha, an “awakened one,” because he awakened to the Dharma, which is the true nature of reality. Any teaching that is in accord with how things really are can be considered the Dharma. This is why anything that conforms to the “three seals of the Dharma” can be considered the word of the Buddha. The three seals are the observations that (1) conditioned phenomena are impermanent, (2) without a self-nature, and (3) that true peace can only be found in the unconditioned, which is nirvāṇa. Sometimes another seal is added, the observation that conditioned things are ultimately unsatisfactory, for a total of four seals.