Ninth-Rank Golden Lotus, True Buddha Scripture, the Impermanence of All Dharmas, Ninefold Buddha Halo

"How do you know the Tathagata has no form?"

Divine Monk Huijue's voice rang out.

Xu Qingxiao's question had made his scalp prickle, but that was not what angered him most. What truly infuriated him was that Xu Qingxiao was debating him using Buddhist Dharma.

As a member of the Buddhist Order, he should have been the one arguing through Buddhist Dharma. He had never imagined Xu Qingxiao would dare debate it before him.

It felt as though he were saying, I haven't used Buddhist Dharma to bully you, yet you're using it to provoke me?

Worse still, the Buddhist Dharma Xu Qingxiao spoke of was profoundly deep. It left him struggling, and he had suffered a crushing setback right at the outset.

Now, he seized upon a flaw in Xu Qingxiao's argument and challenged him, his voice ringing like a bell.

The matter they were debating was simple.

Could one behold the Tathagata through Unsurpassed Right Awakening?

Here, Tathagata referred not to the Buddha Tathagata, but to the true Buddha. Tathagata meant "one who comes by the path of suchness to attain right awakening."

In other words, a sage who grasped absolute truth was a Tathagata.

Unsurpassed Right Awakening meant Buddhist Insight into every principle and unlocking every aspect of one's innate wisdom.

Those who attained right awakening could behold the Tathagata.

This was also a passage in the scriptures of the Western Continent Buddhist Order, from which another statement could be derived: without beholding the Tathagata, one could not attain right awakening.

Divine Monk Huijue believed that attaining Unsurpassed Right Awakening allowed one to behold the Tathagata.

Yet Xu Qingxiao had angrily rebuked him.

The Tathagata was intangible, an embodiment of wisdom, a Buddha. A Buddha had no form, for the Buddha manifested as all things, and all