(4) The Lord Buddha addressed Subhuti, saying: “Supposing a man with a body as pretentious as Sumeru, prince among mountains, would you esteem such a body as being great?” Subhuti replied, saying: “Exceedingly great, Honoured of the Worlds! And why? Because, the Lord Buddha referred not to a physical body, but to mental and spiritual concepts of bodies, in which sense a body may be regarded as really Great.”

(4) Therefore, O king of deities, he who holds, recites, and reveres the scripture is said to honour all the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future. "O king of deities, if there be many Tathagatas so many in number even as the bushes, whether of sugar-cane, bamboo, reed, paddy, or hemp, and the three great Chiliocosms may be full of them, and a son or daughter of a noble family will honour, revere, praise, and pay homage to them and dedicate their dwellings to them for the space of one kalpa or thereabout, and after the passing of those Buddhas, he or she will elect a Stupa of seven jewels containing the perfect body of each of the Tathagatas as wide as the four worlds and as high as the heaven of Brahman, erecting a pole adorned with all magnificence and do homage to them with all the rarest flowers, all kinds of incense, garlands, banners and music, for the space of one kalpa or thereabout; what dost thou think, O king of deities, is the merit planted by this man much or little?”

(25) “ Again, Sariputra, a Bodhisattva who has realised the Inconceivable Emancipation makes himself visible by his supernatural power, as a Buddha body, or a Pratyeka-Buddha body, or a Sravaka body, or Sakra body, or a Brahman body, or a Sahampati body, or a sacred Cakravartin body; again he can produce all the sounds, from the highest to the lowest through all the middle grades, which can be produced in all the worlds of the ten quarters, and he turning them even into the voice of a Buddha, can produce the sounds of impermanency, pain, emptiness, and selflessness in which all the teachings proclaimed by all the Buddhas in the ten quarters can universally be heard.

(13) “ Though he understands that there is neither birth nor death, yet he manifests himself in all lands as the sun is seen from every quarter. “ Honouring countless millions of Tathagatas in all the ten quarters, in him there is no idea of partiality because he distinguishes not between those Buddhas and himself. “ Though he comprehends the emptiness of the nature of those Buddha-lands and beings therein, yet he ever realises the land of purity for the sake of beings who ought to be taught. “ He is the Bodhisattva who possesses the power of fearlessness and manifests even in one moment all beings with their forms, voices, and behaviour. “ Though being conscious of evil yet he follows evil deeds of evil; and he manifests those evils according to his will, through his wisdom of the necessary means. “ He shows himself as subject to old age, disease, and death in order to teach all beings; though he knows that [things are] even as a phantom, yet he understands their real nature in a most thorough manner.

(4) “ O ye gentlemen, this body of ours is to be abhorred, and the body of Buddha is to be desired. And why? The body of Buddha is the body of the law. It is born of immeasurable virtues and wisdom. It is born of discipline, meditation, wisdom, emancipation, wisdom of emancipation. It is born of mercy, compassion, joy, and impartiality. It is born of charity, discipline, patience, diligence, meditation, emancipation, samadhi, learning, meekness, strength, wisdom, and all the Paramitas. It is born of the necessary means. It is born of the six supernatural powers. It is born of the threefold intelligence. It is born of the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment. It is born of the concentration and contemplation of mind. It is born of the ten powers, threefold fearlessness and the eighteen special faculties. It is born by uprooting all wicked deeds and by accumulating all good deeds. It is born of truth. It is born of temperance. Of these immeasurable pure virtues is born the body of Tathagata.

(12) Buddha said: “ Go ye [Bodhisattvas]. Keep back the fragrance of your bodies lest those beings feel attachment [towards you] in their minds. Again you should abandon your real forms lest those who seek to be Bodhisattvas in that land should cherish [the feeling of] self-abasement. Again, you should not be contemptuous of them and thus create a hindrance-thought; and why? All the lands in all the ten quarters are [equal] even as the sky, but only for those beings who find pleasure in the inferior law Buddhas do not manifest their lands of purity.”