for Amanda, Avatamsaka Sutra

[Guest guest]

Hi Amanda,

 

found this post from last year, is beautiful thought it was worth reposting.

 

Antoine <carrea

 

Rainbow/Annette, wanted me to foward this to the list, since she could

not from her work.

 

Enjoy,

 

Antoine

 

***************************

Morning Harsha and Antoine,

 

Thank you for your emails, words, thoughts on the holding of two

thoughts with truth in between. I received this from a friend in Paris

yesterday, sharing.

 

On all the thoughts and non-thoughts: Two Ideas:

 

One, from the actual Avatamsaka Sutra - 'The Ring-Shaped' or 'Garland'

Discourse - [fairly adequately translated as the 'Flower-Ornament Sutra'

(which is, in fact, he title only of its last chapter which is regarded

as a sutra in itself) by Thomas Cleary for Shambhala some years ago], or

'Vast Splendour' in Tibetan...

 

To wit that from the highest spire on the highest roof of 'Sudarshana' -

'Pleasant to See' or 'Bellevue' - the palace of the god Indra, highest

of all gods of the thirty-three heavens, there flies an infinite net

called the Indrajala - or 'Net of Indra' - whose meshes are linked with

an infinity of crystal balls, each infinitely faceted so that every ball

is infinitely reflected in each other ball... [my note, beautiful whole

hologram thoughts, very feminine, like infinite rays of light entering

the midnight pools of water and reflected and refracted back out in

infinite directions with infinite spectrums of color and music,

qualities of frequencies bending in multitudinous directions until they

round the universe and come back on each other, like Sacred Hearts, like

le Coeur d'une fleur, fleur de lys, du Soleil, can i say un flambeau?]

 

The second from Fa Tsang, one of the great teaches of the Avartamsaka

(or Hua-yen) School as it was originally practised in China.

 

One day the Empress came to him and said: "Venerable Master, I have

understood your teaching that the five senses and the foundational

consciousness perceive by direct experience whereas the sixth

consciousness - mind - is capable both of direct experience and indirect

inference. This being the case, much that is known by the mind is

completely errant and astray. You have also explained to me vast mind of

the Womb of Phenomena, and it is true that at times I can almost picture

it to myself, but I realise that this too is simply an inference and is

not the real experience of the absolute mind of continuous arising and

stillness about which you are speaking. Could you not show this mind to

me ?"

 

Fa Tsang thought for an instant. "If Your Majesty would grant me leave

to answer this question only this evening," he said.

 

Permission was granted.

 

After sunset Fa Tsang presented himself before her and requested her to

follow him. At the end of a corridor was a room with a heavy door. This

he threw open to reveal a room lit by a single lamp placed before a

small golden statue of the buddha. The entire room blazed with light for

every square centimetre of it, walls, floor and ceiling, had been

covered with mirrors, big, small and middle sized, and in every mirror

were blazing a lamp and a golden Buddha and the reflections of other

mirrors and other lamps and other golden Buddhas.

 

Then... bowing gently... he again closed the door. ... 2500-year-old

holograms...

 

Rainbolight entering refracting reflecting ... the still pool ... the

still fire