Turning to look inwards ...
There are some 37 TRILLION cells that make up you, all of your heart and brain, every inch of skin, your eyes and fingers, each hair on your head ... each single cell, with few exceptions, containing a complete copy of your DNA and genes.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...-body-4941473/
Looking inward, one can say that each cell of your human body is "you" in most intimate sense. There would be no "you" apart from all that. This is the stuff you are made of, the vehicles of physics and chemistry required for you to be. While no cell or cluster of cells need be indispensable (and while you are certainly more than just that), without the workings of the mass of that there would be no "you" here now to ponder all of that ... with a brain made of that.
Turning to look outwards ...
This week, the European Space Agency's Gaia mission released the most comprehensive and detailed star map created so far. It includes some 1.7 BILLION stars of our Milky Way Galaxy, far more than ever seen before (yet a fraction compared to the cells in your own body).
Looking outward, one can say that each star and each galaxy is "you" in most intimate sense. There would be no "you" apart from all that (source of every atom of each element of all those cells of you, not one excepted). This is the stuff you are made of, the vehicles of physics and chemistry required for you to be. While no star or whole galaxy need be indispensable (and while you are certainly more than just that), without the workings of the mass of that there would be no "you" here now to ponder all of that ... with a brain made of that."It gives the brightness and location on the two-dimensional sky for 1.7 billion stars, measures the distance and motion of 1.3 billion of them, and measures the color of about 1.4 billion. It also measures the surface temperature, radius and luminosity and radial velocity of smaller numbers. ... Astronomy is perhaps the oldest scientific discipline and has fascinated people for as long as they have looked at the sky, but this star map dwarfs anything that has come before. Astronomers certainly have their work cut out for them, for the Gaia mission's data will take years to analyze and understand."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/28/opini...oln/index.html
In the Huayan (Flower Garland) Buddhist vision, so influential upon the Zen Masters, one might say that each cell, each atom, each planet, each star or galaxy contains all in totality, contains all the other atoms and each atom embodies it. Each and all depends, one by one, on all the rest, flows into the rest, expresses the rest. It is a vision of integration and mutual dependence and identity that is very ancient in Mahayana Buddhism.
Not our usual way of seeing what we, and all things, are.[In] his Essay on the Golden Lion [Master Fa-tsang} explained the nonobstructing interpenetration of the universal and particular by describing in detail how the gold [which was formed into a a gold lion statue], like the universal principle, pervaded the object completely, but that its particular unique form was that of a lion. The gold represents the ultimate truth of emptiness. Although the parts of the lion seem distinct and unrelated, the essence of the lion itself—that is, gold—remains the same. Within each and every hair of the lion, paradoxically, exists the golden lion. All of the lions contained in each and every hair simultaneously penetrate into one hair. Therefore, within each and every hair there are infinite lions: simultaneously the whole of things creates itself, the ultimate truth and concrete manifestations are interfused, and the manifestations are mutually identical.
... These illustrations reached conclusions that the unenlightened find puzzling, but they are an integral part of Huayan philosophy. Examples are: Inside everything is everything else, and yet no things are confused; Each part in itself fully exemplifies the entirety of the whole; Nothing exists truly in and of itself, but requires everything to be what it is; All things are contained in each individual; Everything is identical because each phenomenon relates to and defines every other phenomenon (yet each phenomenon is again also distinct); The whole universe is contained in a grain of sand; and, the links of interdependence expand throughout the entire universe and at all times (past, present, and future)
http://mnzencenter.org/pdf/Hua-Yen%20Buddhism.pdf
And of course, all pour into and out of our sitting on the Zafu in a moment of Zazen.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Shingen
