QUESTION: I think I broadly understand deathless. The state of no rebirth and therefore no more death? How does deathless differ from immortal. If there is no more birth and no more death surely this is immortality?
SHORT ANSWER: The Deathless is nirvana
LONGER ANSWER: Not everything is impermanent. The Dharmakaya - absolute truth - is neither born nor dies because it is not dependent upon conditions. It is unconditional. We, on the other hand, are mortal beings living conditional existences. How can we bridge the gap? How can the unconditioned speak to we conditioned beings? All true religion is concerned with offering something toward answering this question. All the Dharma of Buddha, all the appearances of bodhisattvas and sambhogakaya Buddhas - all these are generated by this tension.
Dogen says that it is not really that a deluded person becomes an enlightened person because there is no continuity between the two. The enlightened person is in continuity with enlightenment without beginning. It is a different realm. Yet the realm of enlightenment totally interpenetrates the realm of ordinary conditioned life. They are not two different places.
The Pure Lands of Buddhas are intermediate realms. They are not the Dharmakaya itself because they are still conditioned realms. The conditions are much more favourable, but not totally transcended. Also one enters the Pure Land for a time. There are limits.
Buddhas live in the perspective of the Dharma kaya and we have faith in them. Thus we have faith in the deathless. Shakyamuni forbade us from speculating too much about such things as immortality. What we already are is enough.
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