The light touch of hand can tame the entire universe.
The Buddha Sakyamuni, at the moment of enlightenment, invoked the earth as witness, as indicated by the fingers of his right hand, which spread downwards in the “gesture of touching the earth.” As the Buddhist Sutras relate, the sun and moon stood still, and all the creatures of the world came to offer obeisance to the Supreme One who had broken through the boundaries of egocentric existence. All Buddhist art celebrates this supreme moment and leads the viewer toward the Buddha’s experience of selfless and unsurpassed enlightenment.
The first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha are said to have been drawn on canvas from rays of golden light emanating from his body. Later Buddhist art pictured the Buddha in numerous manifestations, but always as an archetype of human potential, never as historically identifiable person. All forms of the Buddha, however, are commonly shown seated on a lotus throne, a symbol of the mind’s transcendent nature. As a lotus rises from the mud to bloom, unsullied in open space, so too does the mind rise through the discord of its own experience to blossom in the boundlessness of unconditional awareness.
Buddhism is not a static doctrine, but a creative expression of the interdependent nature of things. It is a means by which we can discover in the heart of experience, not ourselves, a luminous and unfolding mystery. Buddhism envisions the universe as a net of jewels, each facet of reality reflecting every other facet. Our calling is not to escape this web of interdependent origination, but to awaken our in dwelling Buddha nature, to see the world for what it is, and to become Buddhas of our own right – beings of infinite awareness and compassion.
Be a light unto yourself. – Buddha Sakyamuni
*previous post on Celestial Gallery here
image:Celestial Gallery by Romio Shrestha, 2000
text excerpts: Celestial Gallery, foreword by Deepak Chopra, 2000
text excerpts: Celestial Gallery, foreword by Deepak Chopra, 2000
hilitehead 
Leave a reply to Pocket Perspectives Cancel reply