("pick
up flower, subtle smile": THE FLOWER SERMON)
Zen
traces its origins back to the Buddha himself, back to his legendary
‘‘flower sermon.’’ To use Do¯gen’s words: ‘‘Once
Sakyamuni Buddha, on Vulture Peak in India, in the midst of a vast
assembly of beings, held up an udumbara flower and winked.’’
Buddha himself said nothing. The flower itself was the sermon. At
this, a disciple named ‘‘Venerable Mahakasyapa smiled. Then
Sakyamuni Buddha said, ‘I have the treasury of the true dharma eye,
the inconceivable mind of nirvana. This I entrust to Mahakasyapa.’
’’9 And so Buddha passed on his entire teaching (or dharma), in
an instant, without words. Mahakasyapa had his eye opened and
signaled his understanding without words, with a simple smile. This
story is an icon for the Zen tradition, that Buddha’s dharma was
and is passed master to disciple, wordlessly, mind to mind. For
centuries Zen practitioners have presumed this founding legend was
historical, but the story was coined, it seems, in medieval China,
partly as a way for Ch’an to define itself and defend itself
against rival Buddhist schools. The earliest known version appears
only in 1036 in an encyclopedic Ch’an history.
WILLIAM HARMLESS, "Mystics", p.192
[In
India, during the time of Buddha Sakyamuni ( over 2,500 years ago),
it was believed that there were five different lotus : padma (red
lotus), pundarika (white lotus), nilpala (yellow lotus) , utpala
(blue lotus), and the kumuda (white lotus). It is now known that only
the padma and the pundarika were actual lotus, while the rest were
water lilies (Nymphaea sp.)]
http://www.harmanvisions.com/paintings/buddhalotus.html
(my real best thanks to Bruce Harman, ©harmanvisions.com, for his art and his vision and his human kindness)
(my real best thanks to Bruce Harman, ©harmanvisions.com, for his art and his vision and his human kindness)
and see Joseph Campbell, THE SYMBOL WITHOUT MEANING-
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