ever since reading the july 9, 2009, post of rob and trish macgregor called, THE WAY OF THE EAST, i have had a mental astronomical image of INDRA'S NET but had not found exactly what i saw it to be - that is, until just now, when i came across this image of an ancient open star cluster thought to be more than 8 billion years old and about 13,300 light years away - the moment i saw this image, i knew it was "my Indra's Net" - and i found this little blurp below at wikipedia - but be sure to check out the macgregor's post for a very clear discussion - and enjoy!
INDRAS NET -
Francis Harold Cook describes the metaphor of Indra's net from the perspective of the Huayan school in the book Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra:
| “ | Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infintely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. |
6 comments:
Beautiful metaphor. Somehow I missed the post from Rob & Trish and went back to read it. It is funny how everything is starting to make so much sense. Synchronicity.
thanks nancy - and i must say, this image has somehow captured me - truly - seeing this actual astronomical "net of jewels" has made it possible for me to "see" indra's net in a whole new way - one of much more clarity -
Just beautiful..........ahhhhh xx♥
thanks natalie - yes, the image is one i never tire of - i love it!
Fantastic! That really fits Indra's net, I think.
trish and rob - yes, i thought this image was the perfect fit! for me, it brought home the actual physical connection of it all - thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment!
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