#indra's net

[389]

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." –Alan Watts

[windydesertart]

Indra's cradle

[jamabushi]

I get this feeling I'm in motion

[didanawisgi]

“The Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor for the structure of reality. Imagine a vast net; at each crossing point there is a jewel; each jewel is perfectly clear and reflects all the other jewels in the net, the way two mirrors placed opposite each other will reflect an image ad infinitum. The jewel in this metaphor stands for an individual being, or an individual consciousness, or a cell or an atom. Every jewel is intimately connected with all other jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change, however slight, in every other jewel.”

From The Enlightened Mind by Stephen Mitchell.

“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 indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of 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 the process of reflection is infinite. The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mututal intercausality.”

~ Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra

Photo: Indra’s Net by Doug Benner 

[noosphe-re]

The Buddhist allegory of "Indra's Net" tells of an endless net of threads throughout the universe, the horizontal threads running through space, the vertical ones through time. At every crossing of threads is an individual, and every individual is a crystal bead. The great light of "Absolute Being" illuminates and penetrates every crystal bead; moreover, every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net-but also every reflection of every reflection throughout the universe.

Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

[skrcrw01]

ari !!

[featherbone-main]

i am you are me

“recognition of the self in the other”

[eelhound]

"According to the prevalent secular paradigm, biological evolution is the result of physical processes operating according to impersonal laws. It is a mechanistic model.

But what if, instead of reducing biology to physics and viewing the cosmos as a machine, we try to understand the physical universe according to a biological model — that is, as alive? As Joseph Campbell observed, 'If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.'...

So what other models are possible? Insofar as the universe constantly evolves new and more complex structures, is it better understood as an organism?

The different metaphors have very different implications. Machines can be disassembled into their components, cleaned, and after reassembly they work better than ever — but don't try that with an animal! That is because the various parts of a mechanism are lifeless in themselves but an organism is alive. And the components of an organism are better understood as organs.

This is more consistent with Indra's Net, a Mahayana metaphor that compares the cosmos to a multidimensional web with a jewel at each knot. Each of these jewels reflects all the others, and each of those reflections also reflects all the other reflections, ad infinitum. According to Francis Cook in Hua-Yen Buddhism, Indra's Net 'symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos.' Because the totality is a vast body of members each sustaining and defining all the others, 'the cosmos is, in short, a self-creating, self-maintaining, and self-defining organism.' In biological language, such a cosmos is self-organizing.

If the cosmos is a self-organizing organism, perhaps the earth too is something more than a place where we just happen to reside, more than a source of resources to be exploited as we like.

Does that also mean that our species is something more than the accidental product of random genetic mutation? An organ is a collection of tissues forming a structural unit that has a specific function within the larger organism. Are human beings an organ within the Great Organism? If so, what is our function?"

- David R. Loy, from Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis