Today (December 10, 2015) is the 200th birthday of Ada King (nee Byron), Countess Lovelace, mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer. She was Lord Byron’s only legitimate child and worked with Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine.
21 signs that prove booksellers are the absolute best (especially the ones who use chalkboards!): http://bit.ly/1MsNjIk via @BuzzFeed
The great compassion of these great Bodhisattvas is strong and steadfast, extending to all beings. Throughout the universe they change their bodies to a golden color and carry out the deeds of Buddhas time and time again; adapting to the faculties, natures, and inclinations of sentient beings, with a universal tongue within one voice they manifest unlimited sounds, teaching as appropriate to the occasion, bringing joy to all. Even if there were countless beings in innumerable conditions, all in the same assembly, that assembly so vast it fills untold worlds, and each had innumerable mouths each capable of producing billions of sounds, and each should ask the Bodhisattvas different questions all at once, the Bodhisattvas would be able to take on all the questions instantly and reply to them and cause their doubts to be removed. As this is true of one assembly of Great Bodhisattvas, so it is also of countless assemblies.
Avatamsaka Sutra - Flower Ornament Scripture 469
Note on the image: Avalokiteshvara or Quan Yin, from the Chinese tradition. Our hero Sudhana, lower left.
It is good that you have set your mind on supreme perfect enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-sambodhi). The will for enlightenment is not developed by people who have not planted roots of goodness; the will for enlightenment is produced by those who have attained the illumination of all-sided roots of goodness, who are illumined by the light of knowledge of concentration on the path containing the means of enlightenment, who have accumulated a vast ocean of virtue as provisions for the path to enlightenment, who ceaselessly practice all that is pure and good, who tirelessly apply the methods set up by all spiritual benefactors, who are not worried about their physical subsistence, who are free from clinging to material things, whose minds are equanimous as the Earth, without high or low, who are by nature compassionate and friendly, who face up to all states of being, who seek the sphere of those who realize Thusness. In such people arises the mind of enlightenment (bodhicitta)—the mind of great compassion, for the salvation of all beings; the mind of great kindness, for unity with all beings; the altruistic mind, to repulse all that is not good; the mind of mercy, to protect from all fears; the unobstructed mind, to get rid of all obstacles; the broad mind, to pervade all universes; the infinite mind, to pervade all spaces; the undefiled mind, to manifest the vision of all buddhas; the purified mind, to penetrate all knowledge of past, present, and future; the mind of knowledge, to remove all obstructive knowledge and enter the ocean of all-knowing knowledge.
Avatamsaka Sutra - 1183
Note on the image: Avalokiteshvara dharani mandala.
All lands there be in the ten directions Are beautified and purified, all in an instant, By the sublime voice turning the wheel of truth Throughout the world, without equal.
The realm of the Buddha has no bounds— In an instant the cosmos is filled; In every atom he sets up an enlightenment site, Proving enlightenment in all, creating mystic displays.
Buddha cultivated practices in the past Extending through countless eons Adorning all buddha-fields, Appearing unhindered, like space.
The Buddha’s spiritual powers are unlimited, Filling the boundless reaches of all time— Even if one spent countless eons constantly Observing, one would never be wearied or jaded.
Observe the realms of Buddha’s mystic powers— All lands in all quarters are beautifully pure: He appears therein, in every one, Instantaneously changing, in infinite forms.
If you observe the Buddha for countless ages You won’t apprehend even the extent of one hair— The Buddha’s boundless doors of skilful-means Illumine inconceivably many fields.
Buddha, in past ages in the world, Served an infinite ocean of Buddhas; Therefore all beings are like river rapids Coming to make offerings to the World Honored One.
The Buddha appears everywhere, In infinite lands in each atom, The realms therein being all infinite too; In all he abides for endless eons.
Buddha of yore for the sake of all beings Cultivated an ocean of boundless compassion, Entering birth and death along with all beings, Teaching the multitude, making them pure.
Buddhas abide in the matrix of the cosmos of real thusness— Signless, formless, free from all stains. When beings observe Buddha’s various bodies, All their troubles and pains dissolve.
Avatamsaka Sutra - Flower Ornament Scripture – 132, 133
Note on the image: Kasyapa Buddha (Kassapa in Pali). This Buddha preceded Shakyamuni. According to Theravāda Buddhist tradition, Kassapa is the twenty-seventh of the twenty-nine named Buddhas, the sixth of the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity, and the third of the five Buddhas of the present kalpa. More here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassapa_Buddha
This is the abode of those who dwell in the state of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness; this is the abode of those who dwell in non-conceptualization of all things, those who dwell in the state of the unity of the cosmos, those who dwell in the state of the ungraspability of the realm of beings, those who dwell in the state of nonattachment to all worlds, those who dwell in the state of nonreliance on what all worldlings rely on, those who dwell in the state of independence from all supports, those who dwell in the state of independence from all bodily existence, those who dwell in the state of annihilation of all afflictive notions, those who dwell in the state of the essence of all things, those who dwell in the state of freedom from false imaginings, those who dwell in the state of detachment from all thought, those who dwell in the state of neither entering or leaving all perceptions, those who dwell in the state of entry into profound transcendent wisdom, those who dwell in the state of capacity to penetrate the realm of reality in all its aspects, those who dwell in the state of ability to extinguish all afflictions, those who dwell in the higher state of wisdom free from all views, cravings, and conceits, those who dwell in the state of freedom arising from higher knowledge of all meditations, liberations, concentrations, and spiritual attainments, those who dwell in the state of development of all spheres of concentration of bodhisattvas, those who dwell in the state of presence with all buddhas.
Avatamsaka Sutra - 1454, 1455
Note on the image: Padmasambhava’s pure realm.
Wisdom peerless, teaching boundless, Gone beyond the sea of existences, reaching the other shore, Life span and radiance beyond compare: This is the power of the Virtuous One’s skill.
Clearly understanding all the Buddha’s teachings, Always observing all times tirelessly, Even when perceiving objects, not discriminating, This is the power of the Inconceivable One’s skill.
Contemplating sentient beings without any concept thereof, Observing all existences without such ideas, Always abiding in meditative stillness yet not binding the mind: This is the power of skill of unhindered wisdom.
Avatamsaka Sutra - Flower Ornament Scripture - 293
Note on the image: Bodhisattva at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Photo by the admin.
Happy 80th birthday wishes to the Dalai Lama. 80 years and going strong. May he remain until samsara ends!
The spiritual benefactor Gopa said to Sudhana: “And just as I comprehend, know and realize the oceans of enlightening practices of Vairocana Buddha in this whole cosmos, so also do I comprehend, know, and realize the indivisible oceans of enlightening practice of all buddhas in all oceans of worlds throughout the cosmoses throughout all space. In this way I comprehend the entry into the indivisible totality of all bodhisattvas’ practices, entry into the infinite web of illusion, infinite cosmic pervasion, infinite instruction, and indication of entry into the bases of endless eons, of all buddhas in all oceans of worlds, throughout the cosmos, to the furthest reaches of space. Why? Because this is the scope of the enlightening liberation whose sphere is observation of the ocean of concentrations of all bodhisattvas; having attained this, I know the patterns of mental behavior of all beings, the accumulation of goodness of all beings, the means of purgation of defilements of all beings, the variety of deeds of all beings, the doors of concentration of all buddhas’ disciples, the tranquility, liberation, and mystic transformation of all individual illuminates, the methods of the oceans of concentrations of all bodhisattvas, the ocean of ways of liberation of all bodhisattvas, and the ocean of ways of liberation of all buddhas.”
Avatamsaka Sutra - Flower Ornament Scripture] 1406
Note on the image: Vairocana Buddha
Good books - good comrades. A German poster tells citizens to donate their books to the soldiers at the front.
smithsonianlibraries
Illustration of anthropomorphized nightshade from Walter Crane’s A flower wedding (1905).
Full text here.
