A Comedy of Flowers

With "Brexit Day" fast approaching I feel the need for some form of diversion. Throwing off the shackles of Brussels, being rid of the EU Bullies and finally getting our country back undoubtably needs the backdrop of a calm and measured mind.

Again, I heard this morning of the various online threats to our Banking Cyberworld, of networks going down and folk left without cash or the various other means to pay for their Costa coffee. Apparently the advice of our experts is to "diversify our portfolios", which I must say sounds rather painful. I will put that on hold at the moment and rest content with my current set.

Well, I mentioned diversion and have found it in the "Flower Ornament Scripture", otherwise known as the Avatamsaka Sutra, a mighty work of over 1500 pages, as translated by Thomas Cleary. It truly offers a counterpoint to the "Divine Comedy", a book I find less and less comical as I progress through Dante's vision of the Inferno and its various occupants. Dante's depiction comes across as soul destroying in an unintended way; this to apparently merely observe dispassionately the writhing people there, all allotted their various circles, each awaiting the knell of doom of the Final Judgement when their current placement will be confirmed for all eternity. 

(Reflecting upon this I think of some lines of Walt Whitman, from his "Song of Myself":-

"Agonies are one of my changes of garments, 

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person,

My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe." )

Walt Whitman

Dante and Virgil exchange the odd comment about what they witness, each secure in the knowledge that they at least are still capable of moving on. Of course, Virgil himself, as previously noted in another blog, can progress only so far, having unfortunately been born before the full revelation of "Christian Truth", which Dante himself has the opportunity of embracing. Not forgetting "grace" of course, as lip service must be offered to such a concept.

I must say the ideas presented in the Flower Ornament Scripture seem a welcome alternative, if not a diversion. In this scripture, Time, more circular than linear,  embraces rather than ticks away our chances. Again, other paths - even Dantes - are presented as just that, "Other", all part of "convenient means", apaya, all of which can be seen and known as the working of Reality-as-is in ways unique to each human heart and life, part of the liberative qualities of spatiality and temporality.  

Is Dante's vision ahead or behind my own? Better or worse? Or simply "other", asking for no judgement, asking only for what empathy I have for another on the road I would call "home"? We each have our time and place. 

Whatever, other "teachings" tumble out from the various floral adornments of the Buddhist scripture, such as "original enlightenment" and universal liberation.

I have always loved the word "universal", a word that if reflected upon and contemplated deeply, negates all judgement of others. More, compels the heart/mind to see that whatever "enlightenment" is, it can never be anything other than gift, free of any sense of having "earned" a place among the elect; even by "choosing" to "believe". All such sense of "entitlement" is precluded by an all embracing Reality. 

On this same subject, as far as our relationship with others is concerned, there are the words of the so called "Founder of Zen", Bodhidharma, who recognised and taught various modes of entry into the "way". 

Two depictions of Bodhidharma (why did he come from the west?)

One of those modes, the entry by principle, he spoke of as follows:-  

.....entry by principle is when you realize the source by way of the teachings and deeply believe that all living beings have the same real essential nature, but this is veiled by outside elements and false ideas and cannot manifest completely. If you abandon falsehood and return to reality, abiding stably in impassive observation, with no self and no other, regarding ordinary and holy as equal, persisting firmly, immovable, not following other persuasions, then you deeply harmonize with the principle.

Yet I think that we do need "experience". It is not that we simply return to a prior state, or simply "recognise" it. We must move on from our own time and place, even if in circles, or spirals, throughout our lives. If experience were bypassed, not needed, or even inherently pointless, then the possibility of any genuine Theodicy becomes totally tangled and any logical "justification" of Reality/God impossible. When looking at our world, at its pain and anguish, both of others and in experiencing our own, the heart - at least mine - cries out for a "meaning", a quality of Reality that opens to the suffering of each, even shares it, and offers to transform it. 

Meaning in suffering?

In Buddhism, this transformation is the "work" of the bodhisattvas. These are often dismissed as mythical creatures by some religionists. While angels might well "exist" - and I must not forget that William Blake claimed to converse with them - the bodhisattvas are sometimes asserted to be purely a product of the over imaginative "eastern" mind. Well, that may be, but given the Flower Ornament teaching as a whole it becomes obvious that the "work" of a bodhisattva is in fact any act of compassion towards another, any act that shows empathy towards others, irrespective of their colour or creed. Acts as much in time/space reality, and thus as "real", as any other. As it is said in the Introduction:-

 "Just as the scripture points out that there are lands and beings who are a mixture of impurity and purity, there are untold incipient enlightening beings always becoming manifest in every thought, word, and deed of compassion."

All in all, as I understand it, it is just one of the ways that teach and reveal that samsara and nirvana are "one"; that leads to recognising that often much religion is simply the betrayal of this world for some imagined other.

 

The Wheel of Life

Again from the introduction to the "Flower Ornament Scripture", and relevant here:-

In this scripture the term “Buddha” is commonly used for thusness or reality itself; in this book it is pointed out that Buddha, as reality, appears everywhere to all beings, but it is seen in accord with their perceptive capacities. It conveys the parallel messages that all experience reality according to their faculties and predilections, and that correlative to this, enlightened guides present various teachings to people in accord with their needs, potentials, and conditions. This accounts for the wide variety of doctrines in Buddhism, some of which may on the surface seem so different as to be even mutually opposed; underlying this variety is the fact that diverse aspects of a situation or levels of truth may be discussed separately, and that different ways of seeing, thinking, and acting may be recommended to different people, depending on the time and circumstances......this principle of adaptation and specific prescription is known as “skill in means” and is so basic and pervasive that it is impossible to understand Buddhism without a thorough appreciation of its premises, its purpose and implications. 

Possibly a bodhisattva plotting his next move

Well, maybe enough for now. Except to add I now often experience a dissatisfaction with words; with the words above, beyond any failure of style! There is a felt need to "say everything at once", to say more, the mind making associations that seek to expand upon what has been explicitly said. Or, alternatively, to set limits to the applicability. Though possibly a slight tangent, this seems associated with the observation of John Keats, mentioned before in my blogs, that he had "never been able to conceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning." Again, how ultimately life can only be lived, never thought or explained; the Living Word as opposed to the written text. Extending these thoughts, they are, I think, all applicable to what James Joyce sought to create in Finnegans Wake, seeking to use language, the written word, to get as close to reality as was possible. Each word a microcosm of all others. Indra's Net. His words throw you out of the book into life itself. Every religion, every creed, perhaps every word, needs its "ejector seat."

Related Quotes:- 

 ".....those who are within a fixed system have not the slightest inkling of the scope of consciousness that lies beyond the bounds of their perceptions as conditioned by their training and development. It suggests that all views that are conditioned by cultural and personal history are by definition limiting, and there is a potential awareness that cuts through the boundaries imposed by conventional description based on accumulated mental habit."

 (From the Introduction to the Flower Ornament Scripture, Thomas Cleary)

From Thomas Cleary's commentary on the Dhammapada:- 

"The Buddhist Sandhinirmocana Sutra explains that delusion arises from clinging to an imaginary reality formulated under the influence of the 'lull of words,' the habit-forming influence that repetition of mental talk has on the state of the perceiving and thinking mind." 

Thomas Cleary then adds a Zen Buddhist proverb: - "The arousal of thoughts is sickness; not continuing them is medicine." 

Postscript:- a short excerpt from the Flower Ornament Scripture.

The Buddha-body is pure and always tranquil; 

The radiance of its light extends throughout the worlds; 

Signless, patternless, without images, 

Like clouds in the sky, thus is it seen. 

This realm of concentration of the Buddha-body 

Cannot be assessed by any sentient being; 

It shows them inconceivable expedient doors: 

This is the enlightenment of Wisdom Light.

 The ocean of teachings, numerous as atoms in a buddha-land,

 Are expounded in a single word—all without remainder. 

They can be expounded this way for oceans of eons without ever being exhausted: 

This is the liberation of Light of Beneficent Wisdom. 

The complete sound of the Buddhas is equal to the worlds; 

Sentient beings each obtain understanding according to their kind, 

Yet there is no difference in the sound:

 Such is the understanding of the brahma king Universal Sound. 

The methods for entering enlightenment 

Of the Buddhas of all times 

Are all apparent in the Buddha-body:

 This is the liberation of Sound of Freedom. 

The activities of all sentient beings are different;

 According to the causes, the effects are various. 

In this way do the Buddhas appear in the world: 

Silent Light can understand this. 

Master of countless media of teaching, 

Civilizing sentient beings everywhere in all quarters,

 Yet not making distinctions therein:

 Such is the realm of Universal Light. 

The Buddha-body is like space, inexhaustible— 

Formless, unhindered, it pervades the ten directions. 

All of its accommodational manifestations are like conjurations: 

Sound of Magical Displays understands this way. 

The appearances of the Buddha-body are boundless, 

And so are the knowledge, wisdom, and voice— 

Being in the world, manifesting form, yet without attachment: 

Shining Light has entered this door.

 The King of Truth reposes in the Palace of Sublime Reality— 

The light of the reality-body illumines everything.

 The nature of reality is incomparable and has no marks: 

This is the liberation of king Ocean Sound.