In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

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Budai
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In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by Budai »

I understand that form is a product of the mind. Yet, can someone explain to me exactly how and what form is, and how it comes about, and what exists beyond it. Also what is the formless? Emptiness plays a large role in understanding form and formlessness, but what is the method of it's creation of there is one? What is beyond formlessness? Is there form in Nirvana? And does some form come from Nirvana? What is it's basis and foundation, and most importantly how can understanding it help bring us to Buddhahood?

Thank you. Om.

Brahma. :anjali:
narhwal90
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Re: In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by narhwal90 »

What sutras have you read? Which lectures? What answers have you received from various teachers on the topic? For that matter, what have you learned from google searches on the topic?
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

The shortest, most simplified answer, perhaps:
Form is really short for formation, and refers to the appearance of things having their own independent reality or existence.

A simple example would be that of a cloud in the sky, a cloud formation. When observed from the ground, it appears to be a big white fluffy object in the sky, as though it exists all on its own.

That appearance is actually an illusion which relies on the fact that we are far away from it and our perspective flattens it visually. If we were in a balloon floating through it, it might appear more as fog or simply as wisps of condensation. And of course, that’s all a cloud is. There is no elemental “cloud-ness” involved. It’s merely water molecules suspended in air according to temperature and barometric pressure.

That lack of any inherent reality is the emptiness of the cloud. Hence, the line from the Heart Sutra, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form”.

The way that form “comes about” is purely through our biased and limited perception of things, as in the case of seeing the cloud from the ground. It’s in that sense that Buddhist teachings assert that all phenomena are just our mental projections. It doesn’t mean that water vapor isn’t condensing in the upper atmosphere. It simply means that the appearances we take for substantial aren’t really substantial at all. They are merely events, temporary arising of conditions.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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Re: In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by Sādhaka »

See the Aggañña Sutra and Dzogchen.
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Queequeg
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Re: In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by Queequeg »

Rupa, or "form", corresponds to matter, the physical aspect of reality.

As I understand, it doesn't come about, in the sense of it spontaneously emerging out of nothing. Since time without beginning, form is dependently arisen with the other skandha ("aggregates").

I believe there is a distinction to be made between rupa and nama-rupa, "name-and-form", which is derivative of ignorance about reality applied to rupa. I think the mechanics of it are something like - a being that is ignorant about the fundamental nature of reality mis-takes an arbitrarily distinguished bit of rupa as having some essential, discrete aspect in distinction to other bits of rupa. Absent ignorance, I don't think one would even make the distinction of "matter"/rupa.

At subtlest levels of awareness, we misapprehend reality and identify rupa, as distinguished from the luminous mind, and then that distinction concatenates exponentially until we apprehend all the distinctions we perceive in samsara.

I've heard some explanations that seem to deal with a reified rupa suggesting that rupa is an effulgence of the primary error of distinguishing self from what appears to the luminous mind, with rupa sort of congealing out of ignorance. That seems to me a poetic gloss.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
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Re: In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by Astus »

'Matter or material form is (1-5) the five sense-faculties, (6-10) the five object-referents [or object-fields of the five sense-faculties], arid (11) the non-informative.'
(AKB I.9ab, tr Sangpo, p 214)

'What is form?
It is all form whatsoever that is included in the four great elements and that is derived from the four great elements.
What are the four great elements?
The earth constituent, the water constituent, the fire constituent, and the air constituent.
...
What is derivative form?
The eye faculty, the ear faculty, the nose faculty, the tongue faculty, the body faculty, [visible] form, sound, smell, taste, a portion of tangible objects, and noninformative [form].'

(Pancaskandhaprakarana, in Inner Science of Buddhist Practice, p 229-230)

'What is the characteristic (laksana) of matter? Change is the characteristic of matter. It has two forms: change in contact and change in localization. What is change in contact? It is the alteration caused by contact by a hand, a foot, a stone, a weapon, a stick, cold, heat, hunger, thirst, a mosquito, a gadfly, a snake, a scorpion, etc. What is change in localization? It is the imagination of form, through determined or undetermined mental conception, as such and such or some such other form.'
(Abhidharmasamuccaya, tr Boin-Webb, p 3)

'Formation (vivarta) occurs after the void state following destruction by fire, first from the commencement of the formation of the wind manḍ ạ la as the lower basis of the first absorption, up to the existence of one sentient being in the hell of Avīci. Formation of the physical cosmos takes one eon, and the formation of sentient beings takes nineteen eons, making twenty eons.'
(Ornament of Abhidharma, 3.90 commentary)
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Re: In Buddhism, what is "form", and how does it come about?

Post by SilenceMonkey »

Form refers not only to physical matter (or non-physical matter of other realms), but also visual forms seen by the eye. I believe visual form is anything perceived by the eye as having some sort of shape and color. So "form" is both the first of the five aggregates and the first of the six objects of perception (perceived by the six sense faculties)

Zen also sometimes translates 相 (chn. xiang, skt. lakshana, tib. mtshen) as form, forms, mind-forms (as well as characteristics, signs) etc... I think tibetan buddhism often translates this idea as characteristics or appearances. Here, it's talking about that which distinguishes something from something else. When zen translates it as "forms" it's talking about appearances perceived by any of the six faculties, particularly what the mind perceives.

I'm not sure if this is also true for other traditions, but in ch'an 色 (lit. form, color) from the heart sutra is often a shorthand for the other five objects of perception. So, in my experience, when they say "form" it almost always applies to any object of perception.
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