The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra portrays the Buddha as possessing an eternal, unchanging nature that is not touched by the birth and death of the historical person. While the physical body at Kuśinagara passes away, the text insists that the “true” Buddha does not come into being and does not cease, remaining beyond arising and passing away. This enduring aspect is identified with the dharmakāya, the Dharma-body, which is unborn, undying, unchanging, and represents ultimate truth and reality. In this vision, parinirvāṇa is not the disappearance of the Buddha, but rather the full revelation of this timeless nature that was always present.

To articulate this, the sūtra speaks of nirvāṇa and the Buddha’s nature in strikingly positive terms. It attributes to nirvāṇa and to the Buddha qualities such as permanence, bliss, self, and purity, explicitly rejecting the idea that nirvāṇa is mere annihilation or simple cessation. The teaching on “no-self” is presented as a provisional means to loosen clinging to the ordinary, egoic self, while the text simultaneously affirms a “true self” that is identical with the eternal, pure dharmakāya. In this way, the Buddha’s ultimate nature is described as a positive, enduring reality rather than a simple absence.

The sūtra also presents the Buddha’s apparent death as a form of skillful means. The display of passing into parinirvāṇa serves to instruct and motivate disciples toward liberation, even though the Buddha’s true nature neither dies nor is born. From this perspective, the Buddha remains a permanent refuge, accessible across time, precisely because the dharmakāya does not perish. The contrast between the perishable physical manifestation and the imperishable Dharma-body allows practitioners to understand that what is most real about the Buddha cannot be lost.

Finally, the text closely connects this eternal Buddha with the doctrine of tathāgata-garbha, or Buddha-nature. It teaches that all beings possess a hidden Buddha-nature that is, in essence, identical with the Buddha’s own dharmakāya—eternal, pure, and indestructible, though obscured. The Buddha’s eternal nature is thus not an isolated privilege, but the fully manifest state of what lies latent within all sentient beings. In pointing to an ultimate reality beyond birth and death, existence and non-existence, the sūtra invites a reorientation of faith and practice toward that which is stable, enduring, and already present at the deepest level of one’s being.