Lotus as Symbol

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>From _Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism_ by Lama Anagarika Govinda

 

Part Three. Padma: The Path of Creative Vision

 

I

THE LOTUS AS SYMBOL OF

SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT

 

The lotus is the symbol of spiritual unfoldment, of the holy, the pure.

The Buddha-legend reports that when the newly born infant Siddhartha,

who later became the Buddha, touched the ground and made his first seven

steps, seven lotus-blossoms grew up from the earth. Thus each step of the

Bodhisattva is an act of spiritual unfoldment. Meditating Buddhas are

represented as sitting on lotus-flowers, and the unfoldment of spiritual

vision in meditation (dhyana) is symbolized by fully-opened lotus-blossoms,

whose centre and whose petals carry the images, attributes or mantras of

various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, according to their relative position and

mutual relationship.

In the same way the centres of consciousness in the human body (which

we shall discuss later on) are represented as lotus-flowers, whose colours

correspond to their individual character, while the number of their petals

corresponds to their functions.

The original meaning of this symbolism may be seen from the following

simile: Just as the lotus grows up from the darkness of the mud to the

surface of the water, opening its blossom only after it has raised itself

beyond the surface, and remaining unsullied from both earth and water,

which nourished it - in the same way the mind, born in the human body,

unfolds its true qualities ('petals') after it has raised itself beyond the

turbid floods of passions and ignorance, and transforms the dark powers of

the depths into the radiantly pure nectar of Enlightenment-consciousness

(bodhi-citta), the incomparable jewel (mani) in the lotus-blossom (padma).

Thus the saint grows beyond this world and surpasses it. Though his roots

are in the dark depths of this world, his head is raised into the fullness

of light. He is the living synthesis of the deepest and the highest, of

darkness and light, the material and the immaterial, the limitations of

individuality and the boundlessness of universality, the formed and the

formless, Samsara and Nirvana. Nagarjuna, therefore, said of the perfectly

Enlightened One: 'Neither being nor not-being can be attributed to the

Enlightened One. The Holy One is beyond all opposites.'

If the urge towards light were not dormant in the germ that is hidden

deep down in the darkness of the earth, the lotus would not turn towards

the light. If the urge towards a higher consciousness and knowledge were

not dormant even in a state of deepest ignorance, nay, even in a state of

complete unconsciousness, Enlightened Ones could never arise from the

darkness of samsara.

The germ of Enlightenment is ever present in the world, and just as

(according to all Schools of Buddhism) Buddhas arose in past world-cycles,

so Enlightened Ones arise in our present world-cycle and will arise in

future world-cycles, whenever there are adequate conditions for organic and

conscious life.

The historical Buddha is therefore looked upon as a link in the

infinite chain of Enlightened Ones and not as a solitary and exceptional

phenomenon. The historical features of Buddha Gautama (Sakyamuni),

therefore, recede behind the general characteristics of Buddhahood, in

which is manifested the eternal or ever-present reality of the potential

Enlightenment-consciousness of the human mind, in fact, of all conscious

life - which includes in its deepest aspect every single individual.

Superficial observers try to point out the paradox that the Buddha, who

wanted to free humanity from the dependence on gods or from the belief in

an arbitrary God-Creator, became deified himself in later forms of

Buddhism. They do not understand that the Buddha, who is worshipped, is not

the historical personality of the man Siddhartha Gautama, but the

embodiment of the divine qualities, which are latent in every human being

and which became apparent in Gautama as in innumerable Buddhas before him.

Let us not misunderstand the term 'divine'. Even the Buddha of the Pali

texts did not refrain from calling the practice of the highest spiritual

qualities (like love, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity) in

meditation a 'dwelling in God' (brahmavihara), or in a 'divine state'.

It is, therefore, not the man Gautama, who was raised to the status of

a god, but the 'divine' which was recognized as a possibility of human

realization. Thereby the divine did not become less in value, but more;

because from a mere abstraction it became a living reality, from something

that was only believed, it became something that could be experienced. It

was thus not a descending to a lower level, but an ascending, a rising from

a plane of lesser to a plane of greater reality.

Therefore the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are not merely

'personifications' of abstract principles - like those gods who are

personified forces of nature or of psychic qualities which primitive man

can conceive only in an anthropomorphic garb - but they are the prototypes

of those states of highest knowledge, wisdom, and harmony which have been

realized in humanity and will ever have to be realized again and again.

Irrespective of whether these Buddhas are conceived as successively

appearing in time - as historically concrete beings (as in Pali-tradition)

- or as timeless images or archetypes of the human mind, which are

visualized in meditation and therefore called Dhyani-Buddhas: they are not

allegories of transcendental perfections or of unattainable ideals, but

visible symbols and experiences of spiritual completeness in human form.

For wisdom can only become reality for us, if it is realized in life, if it

becomes part of human existence.

The teachers of the 'Great Vehicle', especially of the Tantric

Vajrayana, were never tired of emphasizing this, because they recognized

the danger of dwelling in mere abstractions. This danger was all the more

real in a highly developed philosophy like that of the Sunyavadins, with

which the intricate depth-psychology of the Yogacarins and Vijnanavadins

was combined.