Sunday, November 11, 2007

Indra's Net

"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."

(Text quoted from Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977; Avatamsaka Sutra, page 2)

4 comments:

katie said...

the pictures shown here are really and truly jewels without end...
Who took them and where? I have a feeling you did and they are THE BEST
ever. tm

Gary Nylander said...

I'm sure these images must look fantastic in print, one gets the feeling you could look for hours and hours.

Sherab Wong said...

Hi nice to meet you! You have great pictures here, I like them a lot and thank you so much for Sharing!
Sherab

Anonymous said...

your images are amazingly serene, introspective and contemplative... I love your style...
Rebecca

I added a link to your blog, hope you don't mind.