by Harvey Kraft
Although they sought no reward for themselves, the Flower Garland Sutra described the manifestation forms of the Great Enlightening Ones (Skt. Bodhisattvas-Mahasattvas) as advanced celestial beings. After innumerable eons of applying the devoted practices of Buddhist Selflessness they achieved a stage of evolution wherein they had acquired Reward-bodies—light-bodies endowed with the ability to move freely and speedily at will through space and time. These celestial travelers, working on behalf of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions,139 gained these powers in order to respond to the call of those who needed them, no matter where they may be needed.
These highly-advanced Great Enlightening Beings (Skt. Bodhisattvas-Mahasattvas) exerted their influence across the Universe. Possessing the knowledge and mastery of Universal Laws across time, space, and scale, celestial beings could travel anywhere in the Universe where their mor-phable Reward-Bodies would take them, without the use of wings or any vehicles of transport.
In the narrative of the Flower Garland Sutra, Sakamuni Buddha was an observer, listener, and the conduit for channeling the scene to his audience. He did not speak. The primary voices narrating the Universal Teachings of Buddhism, its meanings, liberating powers, and purposes were celestial masters of Selflessness—the Great Enlightening Ones.
In the symbolic dream language of the sutra, in every Buddha-world, a golden light-emitting Buddha was seated on a Lion-throne under a bejeweled Sacred Tree. Flanking either shoulder, a pair of Great Enlightening Beings (Skt. Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas)140 stood next to each Buddha.
What was the origin of this mythic iconography?
A similar configuration had been found among the collection of important seals in Persepolis, the Persian capital of Emperor Darius I. A purported Gautama family crest141 bore the etching of a crown-headed king flanked by two totems, each a standing bird-headed winged lion. The twin guardians each had the body of lion and the head and wings of a mythic sunbird (i.e., Egyptian Sun-bearing falcon). The lion and falcon-gryphon motifs represented a pair of Sramana shamans. Therefore, the family seal associated with Gautama, described a royal person of the Arya-Vedic tradition.
The similarities between the Gautama seal found in Persia and the classic royal Buddha symbol may indicate that a conscious revision had been made from its familial rendition to a cosmic icon. In the Buddhist version the standing king was replaced by a sitting Buddha, and a pair of Celestial Bodhisattvas were substituted for the animalicated Lion-Sun shamans. The Buddhist image showed Siddhartha Gautama as a light-emitting Buddha personifying the Sun-star, seated on the Lion-throne. The Buddhist iconography showed that he had advanced beyond the Arya tradition to take his place as a Buddha under a bejew-eled tree with cosmic aides at his side.
The revised motif cannot be accidental. It provides archeological evidence of his Central Asian origin and its link with Buddhism. The difference between the two images, however, was that the Buddhist montage declared his enlightenment under the cosmic Sacred Tree of Illumination. Neither the tree nor the throne appeared in the Persepolis Seal. And, instead of standing, the Buddha icon showed him sitting, an important clue to indicate that he had achieved spiritual sovereignty recognized by the Enlightening Beings.
In Egyptian, Sumerian, and Vedic mythologies, the iconography of pairs communicated the presence of the clergy, the pillars of wisdom. The image of twin lions guarding Heaven’s gate, the visionary axis mundi, symbolized the Lion-Sun Fellowship, and respectively continued in the portrayals of the Sramana and Bodhisattva pairs.
On the cosmic stage the graduates of the Bodhisattva Way, the Great Enlightening Beings (Skt. Bodhisattva-Mahasattva), supported the efforts of all Buddhas to enlighten the world. Although they were fully qualified to be Buddhas themselves, they humbly preferred to “lead from behind“—choosing through exemplary conduct to show others the benefits of embracing the Dharma Teachings. Using their Reward-Bodies to move quickly between worlds they diligently fostered an appetite for self-transformation among living beings.
The Flower Garland Sutra described them as follows:
These Great Enlightening Beings along with Vairochana Buddha had all in the past accumulated roots of goodness and were all born from the plentiful roots of goodness where aspiring sentient beings dwell. They had already fulfilled the various means of transcendence, and their Wisdom-eye was thoroughly clear. They ably observed with impartiality at all times. They were thoroughly purified in all states of concentration. Their eloquence was oceanic, extensive and inexhaustible. Dignified and honorable, they possessed the striking qualities of Buddhahood.
They knew the faculties of sentient beings, and taught them according to potential and necessity. When they entered into the matrix of the Cosmos, their knowledge was non-discriminatory; they experienced the exceedingly deep and immensely vast liberation of the Buddhas. They were able to enter into one stage of self-transformation, according to technical expediency, yet with an eye on the future maintain the virtues of all stages, including the oceans of all vows and the company of all wisdom. They had thoroughly comprehended the rarely attained, vast secret realm of all Buddhas. They were familiar with the teachings that all Buddhas shared equally; they were already treading the Buddha’s ground of universal light. They had entered the boundless doors of liberation through oceans of concentrations. They manifested bodies in all places and participated in worldly activities.
Their memory power was enormous, such that they could assemble the ocean of all the teachings. With intelligence, eloquence, and skill, they turned the wheel (of time), which never turns back. The vast ocean of virtuous qualities of all Buddhas entered entirely into their bodies. They went willingly to all the lands in which there were Buddhas. They had already made offerings to all Buddhas, over boundless eons, joyfully and tirelessly. In all places, when the Buddhas attained enlightenment, they were always there, approaching them and associating with them, showing by example they never gave up. Always, by means of the vows of universal goodness and wisdom, they caused the Wisdom-Body of all sentient beings to be fulfilled. Such were the innumerable virtues they had perfected.142
Virtuous, pure, and undaunted, the Great Enlightening Beings, celestial practitioners of devoted Selflessness, had manifested willingly in numerous bodies and places as they eloquently and skillfully taught others the transformative wisdom of the Buddha.
Through their example, Sakamuni Buddha introduced his followers to the Bodhisattva Way as a distinctly new spiritual vehicle. This path he recommended was specifically and uniquely a Buddhist approach, not based on the pursuit of a personal goal, but the goal of helping others achieve theirs. The religious aspirants whom he recruited had traditionally used the Vehicle of Learning, characteristic of the Brahmin pursuit for personal liberation, and/or the Vehicle of Realization, indicative of the soul-purification meditations of ascetics. Sakamuni encouraged practitioners of both vehicles to include the Bodhisattva Way. He offered the practice of selfless compassion as the means for replacing the goal of self-centered liberation with a higher consciousness dedicated to the liberation of humanity.
The Vehicle of Selflessness was a critical bridge to fostering the service-minded attitude of a Buddha. The Selfless Way was designed to help his disciples extend their goal beyond the gates of liberation and cultivate a conscious Desire for Perfect Enlightenment (Skt. Bodhicitta). None of the Buddhas had aspired for liberation for their own sake. They all pursued it for the salvation of others. It would be incumbent as well on their disciples to align themselves with the most profound reason for studying under a Buddha—a continuous commitment to selfless compassion.
Having dramatized the vast scope of space and scale, Sakamuni turned his attention to Cosmic Time. Entering the realm of memories in the Universal-Mind, he recalled that he had experienced a myriad of lifetimes as a devotee of the Selfless Way (Skt. Bodhisattva) wherein he served 75,000 Buddhas for one million major eons, 76,000 Buddhas for the next million major eons, and 77,000 Buddhas for a third million
major eons.143 He concluded that this long-term devotion to Selflessness had prepared him to be the Buddha in his present life.
Once his disciples understood that the Bodhisattva Way was the path Sakamuni had taken across Cosmic Time, some among them were able to conjure the vow to undertake the course of Selfless devotion starting with their present lifetime.
To those who chose this path he said: “There is a dimension of Actual Reward where thoughts that merit manifestation could emerge into Existence, and thoughts that were once actualized were stored. In this place, thoughts of great merit took the form of precious jewels and wisdom was the light reflected from them. This dimension was also called the Lotus Treasury Mind-World.”
LOTUS TREASURY
Sakamuni turned his gaze on a single lotus flower floating among a string of blossoms on a garden pond. Sitting in his cosmically Enlightened Biosphere (Skt. Bodh Gaya), he sharpened his focus looking inside the flower into the seedpod at its center. His mind zoomed in peeling back all the outward appearances of the lotus; a portal opened below the visible plane of existence. Diving down far below the surface world, faster and faster, his inner vision pierced the microcosm until he broke through the borderline of the infinitesimal cosmos and burst forth into another dimension.
Having surpassed all levels of scale, where neither size, nor shape, nor substance mattered, he had crossed into a fantastic landscape. Vibrating lotus blossom garlands gently swayed in a pleasant breeze. The lotus flowers emitted beautiful music and, in turn, the waves of sound turned into colors and aromas, painting scenic Buddha-fields with psychedelic imagery and infusing the air with sensual delights.
This was the Lotus Treasury Mind-World, the repository of memories and potentialities, including all the manifestations that could be or could have been and all the possible conceptions that had ever or will ever emerge into physical, mental, emotional, or energy forms.
Scanning the landscape, the Buddha's vision revealed a towering, cosmic-scale lotus flower stalk rising from the bottom of an endless body of water, the Great Fragrant Ocean-Mind of Infinite Wisdom. Its red underwater floor was covered with fiery jewels. The lotus rhizome was rooted in it. Its colossal stem climbed vertically higher than any ordinary imagination could conceive of. Its stupendous crystalline white blossom drifted calmly on the water surface. Its luminous stamens constantly emitted joyful fragrances.
The Giant Lotus stem was made of innumerable numbers of circular disc-worlds stacked one level on top of the other. Each disc-world ring contained a colossal wheel of Universal Truth. Its continual spin
produced an outer wall of wind. The wind-membrane carried in it vari-ous forms of communications, signal transmissions, vitality, and motion, as well as designs for life-sustaining functions, such as senses, cognition, breath, and circulation. Each disc-world in this lotus spinal column incu-bated the dynamic attributes needed for the formation of a world.
The lowest rung among these rings was named the Dharma-Abode of Equality. The one just above it was the Dharma-World of Jewels Springing Forth to Adorn the Mind. The highest disc, the Dharma-Re-pository of Unexcelled Radiance, topped the towering stem, where it formed the peduncle supporting a Great Lotus Flower cup floating on the calm ocean surface. Extending out from the floral receptacle were round, wide, pale green sepal leaves. When radiant light touched them the leaves retracted and the lotus petals opened. As the petals continued to stretch out to the horizon, their tips bent slightly upward creating the appearance of distant mountain peaks.
Each flower’s receptacle contained a Great Nectar Ocean. In the middle of it an island arose. The island housed pollen-producing sta-mens. Bejeweled anthers topped their protruding filaments. When the anthers opened to release the pollen of Dharma awakenings, gentle breezes carried them to the flower’s stigma where the female pistil tips received them and awakened the ovules that will birth the seeds of Enlightenment.
An impregnated blossom’s cup would swell into a seedpod as each ovule developed into a seed. The seedpod would broaden and dry to a flat surface, as hard as an indestructible diamond. A sea of enlightening nectar flowed into the colossal pits in the seedpod shell, surrounding each seed in a pool of potentiality. Each of the seeds was a Universe poised to emerge into Existence, once the conditions for its emergence would ripen.
Continuing to fly over the landscape with his Buddha-eye, Saka-muni viewed a never-ending series of delightfully fragrant multicolored cosmic oceans. The ocean floors were made of aromatic sandalwood covered with precious metals and colorful gems exuding rainbows rich with delightful floral aromas.
Scented rivers flowed into the oceans as bejeweled clouds crossed the sky. Where the waters swirled, images of Buddhas in various forms appeared. All across this land were Buddha-lands decorated with resplendent palaces, their stairways and balustrades lined with precious metals, surrounded by gardens of white lotus and forests. Banners with the names of Buddha-lands and Buddhas waved in the air. The voices of Buddha-teachers blended with the sounds of living beings eager to learn, while Bodhisattvas held parasols over their heads to shade the listeners from becoming overwhelmed.
Within the innumerable lotuses and fragrant oceans of the Lotus Treasury Mind-World, an inconceivable number of worlds were incubat-ing. Among the galactic seeds ensconced in the diamond-hard seedpod some worlds were either in the process of coming into being or preparing to launch upgrades and advancements.
Each seed contained a row of twenty germs. Each germ was a poten-tial state of being. The germ at the lowest level of a seed equaled as many states of being as the number of atoms in a Buddha-field. The next higher one contained twice that many states-of-being, and so on, until the number of states reached twenty-fold in the level called the Wonderful Jewel Flame World.
Sakamuni Buddha focused his gaze on one galactic seed. Looking into it he spotted the thirteenth germ in its row of germs, typically a bitter one. This bitter germ was the vehicle for the germination of the solar system of the Sun and included the Earth biosphere, named World of Enduring Suffering (Skt. Saha). In this germ he saw ongoing activity. This world had evolved to the stage of cognitive beings, yet the Lotus Treasury Mind-World was constantly producing many new manifestations to populate its Field of Form, Formlessness, and Desire.
As the Buddha came out of his trance, he turned to those who pledged to follow the Noble Paths and said: “Each seed-Universe in the Mind-World is encased in a membrane. Eventually, after the mission of this Universe is exhausted, it would float away from its pod, and descend into the ocean. Once it decayed in the water, it would sink to the bottom, become rooted, and give rise to a new Giant Lotus. Thus, the seed becomes extinct, although it prepares to rise again.”
The Buddhas along with their Teachings had emerged from the Lotus-Treasury Mind-World. But what caused them to arise in the realm of Existence?
Universal Radiance Buddha personified the “body” of the Uni-verse containing the Saha world. But long before it emerged, the Universe-Buddha had received his training in Buddhist practices and perfected his ability to transform a potential seed into a Buddha-filled Universe. Sakamuni Buddha, the Declarer of Truth in the Saha-bio-sphere, also received training from earlier Buddha-teachers. Prior to his birth in this relatively new land among Vairochana’s illuminated world systems, he practiced as a novice under the tutelage of many other Buddhas. When he eventually attained Perfect Enlightenment under the Sacred Tree in the Saha biosphere he determined to remove the bitter taste from this world by injecting the wisdom of enlightened Universal Truth into it.
THE CLIMB
Across the history of civilizations, from Egypt and Mesopotamia to Greece and India, the recognition of a fundamental Universal Truth represented the divine source, laws, and phenomena constituting the natural order of all existence.
The Egyptian Ma‘at defined the proper alignment of the Heavens and Earth. They conceived of a Universal Womb, a giant Cosmic White Lotus (Egy. Sesen) floating atop the Primordial Wa
ters (Egy. Nu). From it the sun was born, suggesting that universal order proceeded from a larger Universe giving birth to the smaller Sun world. In the Sumerian Arta, the divine order encompassed natural and social law. The Greeks defined the order of the Arche as the source wherefrom the universal Laws arose and within which even the gods must operate. The Arya seers of the Upani-sads changed the Vedic Rta to Dharma to make the point that Universal Order came about as the result of a self-fulfilling wish made by a divine Universal Consciousness. In these earlier concepts, the administration of Universal Order fell upon deities and spirit-beings.
Starting from the Buddha’s Infinite Wisdom Cosmology, however, the Universal Order of the Buddha-Dharma was defined by a program for enlightening the consciousness of human beings so they may create their own peaceful, joyful paradise on Earth. In Sakamuni’s vision the human mind created the conditions for suffering. Consequently, it had the power to change the world. Once human desires learned to align their hearts and minds with Universal Truth, he proposed that they would be able to produce a harmonious world.
The Buddha regarded divine beings as representatives of Nature within a single, self-contained, world-system. The jurisdiction of gods and spirits was limited to a local cosmology, such as the Sun solar system. However, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas operated across a boundless cosmology encompassing the star-studded Universe and the Mind-World from which all emanated and returned. The Buddhas and their supporters were assigned the heavy lifting for furthering the evo-lutionary advance of all mortals everywhere across time, space, scale and dimensions.
