Craig Hannah Reporting, Connecticut Sangha
The subject of Connecticut’s Dec. 1st practice was an introduction to aspects of the Avatamsaka sutra.
One of the memorable images from that sutra is a metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of [paraphrasing from WP] Śūnyatā (emptiness), dependent origination, and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy. “Indra’s net” is an infinitely large net of cords owned by Indra, a Vedic deva. In this metaphor, Indra’s net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels.
Francis H Cook describes Indra’s net thus:
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering “like” stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.”
Richard D. gave us a nice introduction to the Avatamsaka sutra. The sutra is, pretty much, the complete basis for the Hua-Yen school of Buddhism which flourished in the first millennium CE, so it is understandably large. Because of its scope, and the literary flourishes used in its writing, it is not something that you can absorb quickly.
Richard followed his introduction with the practical exercise of creating our own rendering of Indra’s Web. It nicely blended the mind blowing-ness of the metaphor with the excitement of creating art.
At the end of our time together, our impermanent creation split into pieces as participants each took a piece of Indra’s Web home with them.
