What Is the Form Aggregate?

Form is the aggregate of form, one of the five aggregates. It possesses appearance, shape, and color, encompassing visible form, shape form, indicative form, and unmanifest form, with the latter three being the form included in the dharmas. Visible form refers to blue, yellow, red, and white; shape form refers to big, small, square, round, long, short, wide, and narrow; indicative form refers to the shape and posture of form, the movements and actions of the body, such as walking, coming, going, and stopping, etc.; unmanifest form refers to the beauty, ugliness, charm, charm, temperament, knowledge, cultivation, calmness, anger, openness, enthusiasm, etc., manifested on the form. Form included in the dharmas is the dust of dharma manifested upon form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, corresponding to the mental faculty, and is discerned by consciousness. Form also includes the form of sentient beings, the male and female appearances, the universe, mountains, rivers, and the great earth, plants, minerals, houses, palaces, and other inanimate objects.

The Diamond Sutra states: "Those who see me in form and seek me in sound are on a mistaken path; they cannot perceive the Tathagata." This means that to see the Tathagata, to see the Dharmakaya Buddha, to see the true Buddha, one cannot seek to see through form or sound. That which possesses form, sound, or the characteristics of the six dusts is not the true Buddha; it is the Sambhogakaya Buddha, Nirmanakaya Buddha, or the manifested Buddha, possessing the thirty-two marks and eighty excellent characteristics. This is a manifested Buddha subject to birth and death. Due to his meritorious power, the demon king Papiyas can also manifest the appearance of the Buddha. After the Buddha's parinirvana, the Fourth Patriarch Upagupta asked Papiyas to manifest the physical form of Shakyamuni Buddha so that he could behold and venerate it. Papiyas then indeed manifested the Buddha's form, emerging from the forest with a group of disciples following behind. When Upagupta first saw it, he thought it was the true Shakyamuni Buddha and unconsciously began to prostrate. Unable to bear the prostration, Papiyas revealed his original form. Therefore, to see the Tathagata, one must not cling to form; one cannot perceive Him through form.