World Honoured One, if both seeing and hearing are beyond birth and death, why has the Buddha said that we have lost (sight of) our True Nature and so acted in an inverted manner? Will you be compassionate enough to enlighten us, and so wash off our defiling dust? Thereupon the Buddha lowered His golden hued arm with the fingers pointing downward and asked Ananda: As you now see my hand, is it in a correct or inverted (position)?
Ananda replied: All worldly men regard this as inverted but I myself do not know which position is correct or inverted. The Buddha asked: If they hold that it is inverted, which position do they consider to be upright?
Ananda replied: If the Buddha holds up His hand pointing to the sky, it will be upright.
The Buddha then held up His hand and said: If worldly men so discriminate between an upright and inverted hand, they will in the same way differentiate between your body and the Buddha's pure and clean Dharmakaya and will say that the Tathagata's body is completely enlightened whereas yours is upside down. If you look closely into your body and the Buddha, where is this so called inversion?