Extraphysical and Extrasensory Powers

Buddha-Fields in the Pores of a Buddha

Today we are going to speak about a Buddha’s extraphysical and extrasensory powers. We will analyze whether such things actually make any sense or are they just interesting stories.

I would like to look at two aspects here. The first is some of the descriptions that we find in the Mahayana sutras. Many Mahayana sutras begin with a description of the extraordinary scene in which Buddha is delivering the sutra: there are millions and millions of different beings present from all sorts of realms. The texts then describe how all the Buddhas and their Buddha-fields are also present. In each pore of the Buddha’s body there is a Buddha-field with a Buddha in it, also giving teachings to millions of beings. All the Buddhas in all these Buddha-fields are also present in each of the other Buddhas’ fields. The depicted scene becomes an incredible array.

We can ask, “What could this possibly be referring to? What is the purpose of giving this kind of description?” I don’t know whether or not we can take such descriptions on a literal level. My tendency is not to take them so literally, but to try to understand them in terms of any possible counterparts from science. But, in addition, I think here the main significance of the description is the analogy it has with Brahma’s net, an image that we find in other Indian sources, not just Buddhist ones. Brahma’s net is a net that has a jewel at each cross-weaving of the threads. Each jewel has reflected in it all the other jewels. The analogy is with each pore of the Buddha having reflected in its Buddha-field all the other Buddhas in all the other Buddha-fields.

I think that this is a good symbol for the network comprising all the teachings of the Buddha. Many great masters have emphasized that if we really go deeply into each word of Buddha’s teachings, in all its various aspects, we can understand all the rest of the teachings reflected in it. In other words, all the various teachings of the Buddha fit harmoniously together.

This is an important point that the great masters make. We need to connect all the various aspects of the teachings with each other. The teaching method in Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, is to give students, gradually, different pieces of a very complex jigsaw puzzle. In fact, Buddha taught in that way as well. If you look at the sutras, each sutra gives a few more pieces of the puzzle and it is up to us, as students and disciples, to put the puzzle together. If we are given an already assembled puzzle, we don’t learn anything. It is in the process of trying to put the puzzle together that we develop ourselves. Also, of course, this gives us an opportunity to develop a tremendous amount of patience and perseverance, because if we don’t have a strong enough motivation, we are going to give up and just throw the puzzle away.

What is more, this is not like an ordinary puzzle. It’s not a linear puzzle in which just one piece fits into another but, in fact, every piece fits into every other piece. It is a multidimensional puzzle. So, when we are working on putting these pieces together, it is important to put them together in a network fashion. In other words, when we learn a new teaching we don’t just look at it as an independent entity in isolation, but we try to plug it into the network and have the whole network now work on a larger scale by including this new piece of the puzzle.

For instance, at the beginning of our Buddhist studies perhaps we learn about the safe direction of refuge. We then learn about the four noble truths and we plug it in and analyze, for instance, “How does that deepen my understanding of refuge – the Dharma refuge, for example?” The same applies to learning about the nature of the mind: it is not just for meditation by itself, but it again strengthens our understanding of refuge, our understanding of the precious human life, of Buddha-nature, of everything. To take each new piece of the puzzle and attach it to every other piece that we have already becomes a very interesting task. In the process of doing that, we see more deeply how some of the other pieces that we already had obtained now fit better together in slightly different ways.

When we talk about these Buddha-fields, then, the Buddha-fields can be understood as representing different teachings of the Buddha. In each Buddha-field – in other words, in each teaching – there is a Buddha imparting a different aspect of the Buddha’s teachings. Moreover, each pore of the Buddha, which has a Buddha-field in it, is reflecting every other Buddha-field. This would represent that all the teachings fit together in each teaching, in each pore of the Buddha. This is a very good symbol, then, for Mahayana. “Mahayana” means the vast vehicle of mind. It is incredibly vast in the sense that it includes the understanding of everything and it shows how everything is reflected in everything else.

We may ask whether there is something similar to this idea in Western thought, particularly Western science, and I think there is. If we search for an analogy with the Buddhist teaching of “all in one and one in all,” I think we can find it in the field of cloning, whereby from one cell of a body we can generate the whole body. In fact, in each cell we have all the information, all the material, reflective of the entire body so that, in effect, there is an entire body encapsulated in every single body cell. Similarly, in every teaching of the Buddha, if we look deeply enough, we could find contained all the other teachings, and we can develop all the other teachings from any one teaching.

This is also very helpful for encouraging a nonsectarian, nonpartisan view of the teachings. That does not refer simply to nonsectarianism between the Tibetan traditions and the Zen traditions, or the Kagyu and Gelug tradition, but even within one tradition, a nonsectarian attitude toward all the various teachings that are present in that tradition. Often within one tradition, we’ll get one teaching, one particular initiation, one Buddha-form, that we are quite attracted to, and we don’t want to hear about any of the other Buddha-forms. We become very closed-minded and that is not at all a helpful attitude. For example, “It is only Tara and nothing else; I don’t want to look at any of these others.” So, this is one point our topic covers: this interconnectedness of all of the teachings as symbolized by Buddha-fields in every pore of the Buddha.

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