MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Worlds of Form and Formlessness
For the three monotheistic religions of Semitic origin, the posthumous attainment of Heaven becomes the final state of the being; but for Mahayana Buddhism, the Pure Land, although an exalted state of conscious being, is still only a halfway stage on the pilgrimage to Nirvana, an interim rest-house on the road to the Metacosmic. From this virtual Nirvana at the upper limit of the Worlds of Desire, the aspirant must still ascend through the Worlds of Form and the Formless Worlds before attaining actual Nirvana. Obviously to proceed from the Worlds of Desire to the Worlds of Form, all desires must be renounced, including the desire for a physical body. Likewise to ascend from the Worlds of Form to the Formless Worlds all corporeal forms - physical, psychic, and spiritual - must be transcended.
Finally, when both form and formlessness have been surpassed in Nirvana, the Voidness of the Void is realized and at once all things are reinstated in the permanent actuality of their Suchness. Only then can ‘Form is Void and Void is Form’ or ‘Nirvana is Samsara and Samsara is Nirvana’ be fully and effectively realized. This makes possible the Bodhisattva's redescent into manifestation, although for one who has reached the summit of the Way, no real return is necessary, since ‘Those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds’. Such worlds, realms, or planes, it need scarcely be remarked, are primarily states of Consciousness in inner space, though it is not impossible that they might have analogical counterparts as other worlds in outer space. By this time, too, it should be apparent that the Buddhist Nirvana, or Liberation from all formal and finite limitations into the boundless sky of blissful Consciousness, is at the opposite pole from its stereotyped Western misconception as a mere indolent lotus-eating that leads only to the final dissolution of the being into the dark ocean-waters of oblivion.