Indra’s Pool

"In one single mote of dust
Are completely seen all worlds.
If living beings should hear about them,
Their minds would be confused and go insane.

As within a single mote of dust,

So, too, it is in every mote of dust.

All world-systems enter within them.

It is in that way inconceivable.

In every particle of dust

Are Dharmas of the ten directions and three times.

The destinies and kshetras are all limitless,

Yet can be known with all their differences.

In every particle of dust

Are limitless kinds of Buddha kshetras.

Of their various kinds, all limitless,

Not a single one remains unknown.

Everything within the Dharma realm,

With all the varying characteristics

And types of destinies, each having differences,
Can all be discerned and known."

- Indra's Net / Avatamsaka Sutra
(late third or the fourth century CE)

Shared Essence

"The spiritual source shines clear in the light;

the branching streams flow on in the dark.

Grasping at things is surely delusion;

according with sameness is still not enlightenment.

All the objects of the senses

interact and yet do not.

Interacting brings involvement.

Otherwise, each keeps its place.

Sights vary in quality and form,

sounds differ as pleasing or harsh.

Refined and common speech come together in the dark,

clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light.

The four elements return to their natures

just as a child turns to its mother.

Fire heats, wind moves,

water wets, earth is solid.

Thus with each and every thing,

depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth.

Trunk and branches share the essence;

revered and common, each has its speech.

...

In the light there is darkness,

but don’t take it as darkness;

in the dark there is light,

but don’t see it as light.

Light and dark oppose one another

like front and back foot in walking.

Each of the myriad things has its merit,

expressed according to function and place.

Phenomena exist, like box and lid joining;

principle accords, like arrow points meeting."

- Shitou Xiqian (700–790)

Inward Form

"The whole outward visible World with all its Being is a Signature, or Figure of the inward Spiritual World; whatever is internally, and however its Operation is, likewise it has its Character externally; like as Spirit of each Creature sets forth and manifests the internal Form of its Birth, by its Body, so does the Eternal Being also.

...

The Being of Beings is a wrestling Power; for the Kingdom of God consists in Power, and also the outward World, and it stands especially in seven Properties or Forms, where the one causes and makes the other, and none of them is the first or last, but it is the eternal Band.

...

This Formed world has manifested itself with the motion of all forms with this visible world, as with a visible likeness, so that the Spiritual being might be manifest in a corporeal comprehensive essence; as the desire of the inward forms has made itself external, and the internal being is in the external; the internal holds the external before it as a glass, wherein it beholds itself in the property of the generation of all forms; the external is its signature."

- Jakob Böhme (1575–1624)
The Signature of All Things

Living Pattern

"Thou art confused, my beloved, at seeing the thousandfold union

Shown in this flowery troop over the garden dispersed;

Many a name dost thou hear assigned; one after another

Falls on thy listening ear, with a barbarian sound.

None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore a mystical law is by the chorus proclaimed;

Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could I only

Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!

Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,

Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit!

...

Here doth Nature close the ring of her forces eternal;

Yet doth a new one, at once, cling to the one gone before,

So that the chain be prolonged for ever through all generations,

And that the whole may have life, e’en as enjoyed by each part.

Now, my beloved one, turn thy gaze on the many-hued thousands

Which, confusing no more, gladden the mind as they wave.

Every plant unto thee proclaimeth the laws everlasting.

Every floweret speaks louder and louder to thee;

But if thou here canst decipher the mystic words of the goddess,

Everywhere will they be seen, e’en though the features are changed."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
 The Metamorphosis of Plants

Woven Becoming

"When we seek definitely to express the relations of events which arise from their spatio-temporal structure, we approximate to simplicity by progressively diminishing the extent (both temporal and spatial) of the events considered. For example, the event which is the life of the chunk of nature which is the Needle during one minute has to the life of nature within a passing barge during the same minute a very complex spatio-temporal relation. But suppose we progressively diminish the time considered to a second, to a hundredth of a second, to a thousandth of a second, and so on. As we pass along such a series we approximate to an ideal simplicity of structural relations of the pairs of events successively considered, which ideal we call the spatial relations of the Needle to the barge at some instant. Even these relations are too complicated for us, and we consider smaller and smaller bits of the Needle and of the barge. Thus we finally reach the ideal of an event so restricted in its extension as to be without extension in space or extension in time. Such an event is a mere spatial point-flash of instantaneous duration. I call such an ideal event an ‘event-particle.’ You must not think of the world as ultimately built up of event-particles. That is to put the cart before the horse. The world we know is a continuous stream of occurrence which we can discriminate into finite events forming by their overlappings and containings of each other and  separations a spatio-temporal structure. We can express the properties of this structure in terms of the ideal limits to routes of approximation, which I have termed event-particles. Accordingly event-particles are abstractions in their relations to the more concrete events. But then by this time you will have comprehended that you cannot analyze concrete nature without abstracting. Also I repeat, the abstractions of science are entities which are truly in nature, though they have no meaning in isolation from nature."

- Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947)
The Concept of Nature

First Distinction

"‘In the beginning,’ my dear, ‘there was that only which is, one only, without a second. Others say, in the beginning there was that only which is not, one only, without a second; and from that which is not, that which is was born.

‘But how could it be thus, my dear?’ the father continued. ‘How could that which is, be born of that which is not? No, my dear, only that which is, was in the beginning, one only, without a second.

‘It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth fire.

‘That fire thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth water.

‘Water thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth earth.’"

- Chāndogya Upaniṣad (8th to 6th century BCE)
Translated by trans. F. Max Müller, The Upanishads

Nested Worlds

"Whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. [...] Each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants and like a pond full of fishes. But each branch of every plant, each member of every animal, each drop of its liquid parts is also some such garden or pond. [...] And though the earth and the air which are between the plants of the garden, or the water which is between the fish of the pond, be neither plant nor fish; yet they also contain plants and fishes, but mostly so minute as to be imperceptible to us. [...] Thus there is nothing fallow, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe, no chaos, no confusion save in appearance, somewhat as it might appear to be in a pond at a distance, in which one would see a confused movement and, as it were, a swarming of fish in the pond, without separately distinguishing the fish themselves. [...] Thus, although each created Monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body which specially pertains to it, and of which it is the entelechy; and as this body expresses the whole universe through the connection of all matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the whole universe in representing this body, which belongs to it in a special way. "

- G.W. Leibniz (1646 - 1716)
Monadology

Boundless Within

"The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in between.
Places worldly people live, he does not live.
Realms worldly people love, he does not love.
Though the hut is small, it
includes the entire world."

- Shitou Xiqian (700–790)

Pathless Way

"The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity

your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,

you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way

fail in both activity and passivity,

assertion and denial.

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;

to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality."

- Sengcan (496? - 606)
Xinxin Ming

Ephemeral Vastness

"Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays in the position of ash, with its own before and after. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it has burned to ash, there is no return to living after a person dies. However, in Buddha Dharma it is an unchanged tradition not to say that life becomes death. Therefore we call it no-arising. It is the established way of buddhas’ turning the Dharma wheel not to say that death becomes life. Therefore, we call it no-perishing. Life is a position in time; death is also a position in time. This is like winter and spring. We don’t think that winter becomes spring, and we don’t say that spring becomes summer.

...

When a person attains realization, it is like the moon’s reflection in water. The moon never becomes wet; the water is never disturbed. Although the moon is a vast and great light, it is reflected in a drop of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky are reflected in a drop of dew on a blade of grass. Realization does not destroy the person, as the moon does not make a hole in the water. The person does not obstruct realization, as a drop of dew does not obstruct the moon in the sky. The depth is the same as the height. [To investigate the significance of] the length and brevity of time, we should consider whether the water is great or small, and understand the size of the moon in the sky."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)
Genjōkōan