 The phrase sokushinjōbutsu means literally, “attaining enlightenment in this very body” or “becoming buddha in this very body.” “Body” (shin) – as Kūkai explains in Sokushinjōbutsugi, ch. 6 – here is not merely one’s corporeal body but one’s lived embodied existence of body-and-mind as one whole. In addition “body” here takes on myriad significances when one views sokushinjōbutsu in light of Kūkai’s other concepts such as hosshin seppō and sanmitsu. Sokushin (“this body”), for example, can signify the cosmos of the hokkai as the macrocosmic body of the hosshin with which one’s own embodiment is non-dualistic. It can mean each of the six universal elements or all of them together that comprise the cosmic body and its samadhi. It can also mean the four embodiments of the hosshin. It can mean the bodies of all living things other than one’s self. In correspondence with the “three mysteries” of body, speech, and mind, or mudra, mantra, and mandala, it can mean bodily gestural symbols (in), figures of letters (ji), and expressive demeanor or countenance (gō). All of these senses of “body” are interrelated and inseparable, mutually mirroring one another.