suchness　真如 Lit., “thusness”; hosshō, dharmatā, “things as they are”. Suchness is a term for true reality, not as an abstract substance underlying existence, but as all things just as they are in themselves. Things being “as they are” means that they are perceived not with discriminative thinking (vikalpa) or the self-centered imposition of distinctions and values, but from the perspective of the wisdom of the enlightened one (bodhisattva or tathagata), who, while recognizing each thing or being in all its distinctiveness and particularity, grasps it nondiscriminatively, in its nondifference with all other things, including the enlightened one himself. This wisdom is called prajñāpāramitā by Nāgārjuna and nirvikalpajñāna by Asańga and Vasubandhu. It is also great compassion, in which all beings are grasped equally, for even the non­duality of sentient beings and Buddha is established in it; that is, while possessing differences, they are equal.
　We have used “suchness” to translate two syn­onymous terms, shinnyo and hosshō. The Chinese term shinnyo is a translation of the Sanskrit tathatā, a noun form (-tā) of the adverb tathā meaning “thus” or “as it is”. A literal translation would be “as-it-is-ness”. In shinnyo, the basic meaning of tathatā is translated by nyo (“just like”, “as”) with the word shin (“true”) added to form a noun distinct from the adverb form. From the original Sanskrit, the basic adverbial meaning of “suchness” is clear; it refers not to an ultimate reality apart from things, but to things themselves as they really are in their particularity, but nonobjectified and nondif­ferentiated.
　We have also used suchness to translate hosshō, notably in the term , “dharma-body as suchness”. Hosshō is a translation of dharmatā, which is an abstract noun form (-tā) of dharma; hence literally “thing-ness”, meaning “thing as it is”. In the Chinese hosshō, hō (hos) is dharma and shō usually means “essence” or “nature”, but as a technical term in the Chinese canon, rather than “essence” it means “being such” (de aru koto). Thus it indicates each individual thing being itself, just “as it is”. Hosshō, then, should be understood to point not to an abstract “essential nature” of the dharma, but to the thing as it truly is. When seen not from the perspective of the dichotomized subject-object thought of foolish beings but as they truly are, things are said to be formless or empty, for they are not objects upon which concepts and judgments can be superimposed; further, they are perceived truly only as the real object of supreme wisdom that knows without discriminating subject and object, or the self-revelatory wisdom itself. D. T. Suzuki states: “The highest reality is not a mere abstraction, it is very much alive with sense and intelligence, and, above all, with love purged of human infirmities and defilements (The Essence of Buddhism, p.47).” In Shin Buddhism, suchness is conceived as that from which arise the mani­festations of the Pure Land, the virtuous Name, and Amida himself. In the Pure Land we will also be enlightened to suchness and participate in the compassionate activity in accordance with Amida’s Vow-Power, which has been produced from suchness.