 Kūkai argues the “mind” of the Shingon mindset is more like “bodymind” because it is a knowing inseparable from praxis. Whereas a philosophy based in metaphysical theory can never establish its own ground, a philosophy based in an engaged bodymind praxis can produce its ground as surely as, we might say, the understanding of the master potter is produced in a masterful work of pottery. Whereas the exoteric philosopher, using detachment and assuming external relations between self and reality, presents truth as ideas linking those two relatents, the esoteric philosopher engages self and reality in an internal relation, presenting truth as a unified bodymind performance of thought, word, and deed. In Kūkai’s terminology, “one achieves buddha in, with, and through this very body” (sokushinjōbutsu). (See the entry on   Kūkai, section 3.9.)