Samjon, or Three Honored Buddhas in the Dharma hall

When we enter the Great Hero hall, a Buddha triad often greets us from the altar; it has Sakyamuni Buddha in the center flanked by two other Buddhas, collectively called the Buddhas of the three worlds. This may refer to past, present, and future buddhas (temporal), or they may represent east, center, and west (spatial/directional).

Samjon or Three Honored Ones in the context of space

If Buddha is in the middle flanked by Medicine Buddha (lord of the Eastern Land of Pure Lapis Lazuli) and Amita Buddha (lord of the Western Pure Land Paradise), the triad has a spatial connotation.

Traditionally, Amita Buddha is on Sakyamuni Buddha’s right side, which signifies the west. The west is the direction in which the sun sets, so it is generally associated with death and annihilation. That is why the Pure Land of Amita Buddha is described as the Western Paradise. Medicine Buddha is seated on the left, which represents the east. The sun rises from the east, so the birth of new life is believed to emerge from that direction too.

When Buddhists come to a temple to pray to this particular samjon, they face left to invoke Medicine Buddha’s blessings to heal their loved ones, or right to implore Amita Buddha to pray for the spirits of deceased family members or friends so that they may be reborn into a pure buddha-realm, or one of the Buddhist heavens.

Samjon or Three Honored Ones in the context of time

When a samjon or Buddha triad is interpreted to represent past, present, and future, the Buddha representing the past is either Prabhutaratna Buddha (who manifested to validate the truth of Sakyamuni Buddha’s sermon according to the Lotus Sutra) or Dipamkara Buddha (the predecessor of the historic Buddha who prophesized the future Buddhahood of Gautama Siddhartha in one of Siddhartha’s past lives). The future Buddha who will succeed Sakyamuni Buddha is Maitreya Buddha. Temples enshrining this particular triad in their Dharma halls were occasionally found in China, but in Korea, Dipamkara and Maitreya were more often than not enshrined in the Vulture Peak Pavilion in their bodhisattva emanations as described earlier.

The Buddhas of past, present, and future represent the undying lineage of countless buddhas who have appeared in this world from time immemorial to the present. Although we cannot meet Sakyamuni Buddha in person today, we might have met one of his past incarnations while traveling through the endless cycle of samsara. If not, we will probably encounter Maitreya or other future buddhas someday in a future life. But most important of all is that we must cultivate within ourselves the confidence that we will join the ranks of future buddhas someday.

Samsin-bul or trikaya (three Buddha-bodies) in the Great Luminosity hall

Sometimes, the Great Luminosity hall also enshrines a Buddha triad on a pedestal with Vairocana Buddha in the middle. However, unlike other triads, they represent the three bodies of one single Buddha, not unlike the way the Christian God is said to be a trinity in unity. In fact, Buddhism attributes these three bodies, or rather, one three-part body, to every Buddha. They are the three kayas: dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya.

Dharmakaya, or ‘Buddha nature,’ expresses itself as Vairocana Buddha. Buddha nature, or the essence of Buddhahood, is in everyone; it is the primordial potential, the seed that is destined to grow into an actualized Buddha. In Buddhism, there is the concept of tathagata-garbha, with tathagatha meaning ‘future Buddha’ and garbha ‘womb.’ According to this belief, all sentient beings are essentially buddhas-to-be. We all hold a buddha seed inside us. Buddhist scriptures say that even a grain of sand in the Ganges River is inherently invested with the capability to become a buddha.

Sakyamuni Buddha is nirmanakaya, or the Buddha revealed. This nirmanakaya aspect of Buddha signifies that for their Buddha nature to be fully realized, all buddhas must first be reborn into a human body bound by time and space. Animals, even if they too have their inner dharmakaya, cannot become buddhas. Why not? Because they still have unresolved unwholesome acts from previous lives that caused them to be reborn as animals. The potential of Buddhahood cannot be fulfilled until these acts are resolved, which can only happen when we are in a human body and earn sufficient merit. Sambhogakaya is often translated as ‘reward-body’ because when one earns sambhogakaya, he is complete, with fully awakened qualities that are received and enjoyed as a reward for past labors saving beings from suffering.

Everyone has a dharmakaya and nirmanakaya. The fact that you are reading this book now proves it without a doubt. But the reward-body is a different matter. We have no idea how much merit we have accumulated so far while living through numerous cycles of life and death, but no matter how small the merit, one good deed at a time will surely reward us with a sambhogakaya someday. Buddha said that karma and the merit it brings follows us into the next life. We cannot begin to fathom the amount of merit required to receive a reward-body, but since we have already endured many cycles of rebirth, hopefully we don’t have far to go.

In short, the concept of having three bodies, or trikayas, neatly summarizes the core tenet of Buddhism. It teaches that we must have faith in our own Buddha nature (dharmakaya), recognize this human body as our precious nirmanakaya, and earn wholesome karma through meritorious practice to receive sambhogakaya.

*Buddhas of the southern and northern lands

In addition to these three buddhas, there are also Aksobhya (associated with the south) and Amoghasiddhi (with the north). All together they comprise the Five Wisdom Buddhas. In principle, all five Buddhas are to be grouped and revered together, but over time they were trimmed down to a triad, leaving only Medicine Buddha and Amita Buddha as the overseers of life and death.