Vairocana, The Sun Buddha

This talk was given at a retreat organised by the London Buddhist Centre, Sibford, December 2000 

We are not rational beings, at least, not just rational. We are also non-rational, imaginative, creative and even at times thoroughly irrational. In order to develop spiritually, to practice the spiritual life, we need to involve the imagination, the intuition, the whole non-rational, emotional aspect of ourselves as well as our reasoning, thinking faculties. It is “as well as” not “instead of”. This is because spiritual practice is a journey into the unknown. We cannot know higher states of consciousness until we experience them. We cannot know Wisdom until we become wise. Because there is is always an unknown element we need to have a strong intuition of the value of this exploration, we need to have an imaginative connection with our goal, which is strong enough to motivate us even when the journey is a struggle. We need to be emotionally involved, to strongly believe in what we are doing. As we embark on this spiritual odyssey, we need to be able to imaginatively connect with the value to ourselves and humanity that will come about through the death of egotism and the birth of Wisdom and Compassion.

The spiritual requires what Bhante Sangharakshita refers to as : “the stirring into life of an imaginal visionary faculty, which is the total reaction of the whole being when confronted by the Ideal, whether embodied in human form or in the teaching.” (Know your Mind, p.233) Our imaginations are engaged by images,whether poetic or pictorial. Images carry messages that rational concepts cannot cope with. Images carry many meanings, layers of meaning, dimensions of meaning, and this is what symbolism is. A symbol is a meaningful image, which conveys many dimensions and layers of meaning that can only really be accessed by imagination.

A mandala is a symbol. A mandala has been defined by Snellgrove as “a circle of symbolic forms....one symbol at the centre, and other symbols arranged at the various points of the compass, which represent manifested aspects of the same truth.” ( Buddhist Texts Through the Ages, ed. E. Conze, p. 246/248)

In looking at the Mandala of the Five Buddhas, we first meet Akshobya, the blue Buddha, representing the imperturbability of the Enlightened Mind, the wisdom that sees all things objectively just as they are. The message of Akshobya is that we should rely on experience and build confidence through experience. The earth-touching gesture (bhumisparsha mudra) reminds us to touch the earth of of our own experience. Then Ratnasambhava, the yellow Buddha is the Buddha of beauty and generosity. He is associated with richness and abundance. Ratnasambhava's open-handed gesture (varada mudra) encourages a wealth mentality and a generous out-going attitude. Amitabha, the red Buddha is the Buddha of Meditation. His symbolism emphasises the qualities of love and compassion and sees the unique value and qualities of every single living being. His gesture is one hand resting on the other in his lap evoking meditation (dhyana mudra). Amoghasiddhi, the green Buddha, gives the gift of fearlessness, the gift of courage and confidence which allows us to do whatever needs to be done. His right hand is raised, palm outwards, in the gesture of fearlessness (abhaya mudra).

Then we come to Vairocana at the centre of the Mandala. Vairocana is white in colour. He is seated in the full lotus position on a white moon mat, which is in the centre of a white lotus. His lotus throne is supported on the backs of four lions. His hands are in the mudra or gesture of turning the wheel (dharmacakrapravartana), the gesture of teaching, and his emblem is the Wheel of the Dharma, an eight-spoked wheel, something like the steering wheel of an old ship.

One thing to remember about a symbol is that it doesn't have one meaning. It's not like a road sign say, which means one thing and one thing only. One sign indicates roadworks, another indicates loose gravel, another warns of cows crossing the road and so on. A sign means one thing. A symbol has many meanings, as many meanings as there is imagination to engage with. A symbol is something to be explored, loved with, delved into, approached from many angles. A symbol is alive, like a person, not to be categorised and labelled and understood once and for all. When I talk about the symbolism of Vairocana and say that it represents such and such, you shouldn't take that as the last word on the matter. You need to allow the images to speak for themselves too. Let your mind, your imagination, engage with the images and see what meanings arise for you.

Having said that, lets look now at some of the symbolism of the figure of Vairocana. His name, as I said, means the Illuminator. So the first thing we encounter with Vairocana is light. Brilliant white light illuminating all of space, all universes. Blinding light. In Japan Vairocana is called the sun Buddha, associating him with the light of the sun. This is the light of Wisdom, the light of Reality, which dispels all spiritual ignorance. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which many of you will be familiar with, it is said that when we die we encounter this clear light of Reality, but we are unable to bear it, we turn away from it in fear and confusion. Another way of putting that is that most of us prefer our ignorance when faced with the stark reality of non-egotistic consciousness. We need to take a little bit of light at a time, a little bit of awareness at a time, until gradually the dark ignorance of egotism is dispelled by the dawning awareness of the inter-connectedness of all life, as a fact and as an experience rather than just an idea. The light of Vairocana is the light of transcendental wisdom, it is the light of Enlightenment, and we need to move towards it gradually.

Spiritual growth is a gradual growth in awareness. It is a process and the more we engage with that process the more we will be able to move towards the clear light of Reality when we encounter it, not just at the time of death but throughout life. We are constantly faced with Reality; the reality of loss and impermanence, the reality of mundane things being unsatisfactory and the reality that we are not fixed ego-entities but constantly changing processes of thought, perception, awareness and body. Everything in the universe and everything in us arises in dependence on conditions and ceases when those conditions cease. This is the Reality that we are being presented with every moment and this is the reality that we turn away from every moment. But if we listen to to the voice of the Buddha, if we hear the teaching with our hearts, we will be given the map and directions for the journey we must make.

When we first hear that teaching, when we first encounter the Dharma, it may seem too difficult, too unpalatable. It may seem that too much is being asked of us. The Buddha's teaching is sometimes characterised as a Lion's roar. When the lion roars in the jungle, everything falls silent, it's time to listen; there may be danger, there may be death. When the Buddha utters his Lion's Roar, everything falls silent. This teaching is fatal to mundane complacency, death to egotism, self-centredness and unawareness. But the Buddha demands nothing from us. His teaching is of the nature of an invitation (ehipassika) and invitations can be accepted or rejected. So, although the teaching is characterised as a Lion's Roar, it is not because it is intimidating or to be forced upon people. It is because the Buddha is seen as a leader among humanity, just as the lion is the king of the beasts.

The lions who support the lotus throne of Vairocana could be seen as representing the teaching of the Buddha, ust as the Wheel of Dharma and the gesture of turning the wheel represent the teaching. Teaching, communicating the Wisdom of the Buddha is obviously central to the symbolism of Vairocana. But we will come back to that later.

First, just a few more things about the symbolism of the lion. In these images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas usually what is beneath the lotus represents mundane consciousness and what is above the lotus represents transcendental or Enlightened consciousness. The lotus itself represents the process leading from one to the other – the unfolding and blossoming of awareness. So the lions here are mundane energies transformed until they act as supports for the arising of transcendental Wisdom.

The lion is the king of the beasts, so this could be seen to represent the transformation of our animal nature and all the energy that goes into the pursuit of food and sex and serving the body. All that energy, time, effort is eventually put at the service of spiritual transformation. This is what the tradition of Going Forth is about in Buddhism. One goes forth from the complex life to the simple life, from the life that's concerned mainly with material things and the body to a life concerned with matters spiritual. Traditionally the monk or nun would practice celibacy, eating in moderation, having only the bare minimum of possessions and generally living a very simple life. We may not be able to do all that or at least not all at once but we can probably simplify our lives in some small ways and put a little less energy into worldly concerns. A little less shopping perhaps, a little less over-eating and so on. Not only would it be good for us spiritually to lead simpler lives, it would be good for the planet too. Currently the human race is slowly eating away at the branch it is sitting on, like a demented monkey. Such is the power of greed, such is our animal nature and that is the energy we need to harness to support our spiritual practice. There is an image in the Christian tradition of St Jerome in the desert. Sometimes he is depicted in the desert atoning for his sins, sometimes seated at his desk working on his new translation of the Bible. However he is portrayed, there is always a lion in the picture, and the lion is tame. Sometimes St. Jerome is resting his feet on the lion. I think this image is getting across the same basic idea of our animal nature, being tamed and put at the service of a higher spiritual task.

The lions associated with the figure of Vairocana can be seen to represent this process of simplifying our needs and freeing up energy for spiritual practice and they can also be seen to represent the fact that the Buddha has a kingly nature. Sometimes the Buddha is referred to as the Jina. Jina means victor. He is victorious over all the forces of ignorance and greed and hatred that are obscuring Reality. At the time of the Buddha's birth, legend has it, it was predicted that he would either become a great king or a Buddha. His father did his best to ensure that Siddhartha would gain worldly success but Siddhartha became totally disenchanted with the things of the world and went forth from home as a wandering mendicant to seek the truth. And of course from a spiritual point of view this is a far greater life, a far more significant and meaningful life than the life a king or any mere holder of power. The power of the truth is more lasting and more important than the power of any government or dictator.

Vairocana's hands make the gesture of “turning the wheel” or the gesture of teaching. The wheel being turned is the the wheel of the Truth, the wheel of Reality – the wheel of the dharma. This gesture and this image of a wheel of truth relates back to the first time the Buddha tried to communicate his Enlightenment experience to others. He went to visit five former companions and spent days and weeks in dialogue with them, trying to get across to them what he now understood from experience. Eventually one of them understood, his name was Kondanna, and it is said that at that moment the wheel of the Dharma, the wheel of Truth was set in motion. That was the beginning of Buddhism, we could say. Until someone understood, until the experience was communicated, there was no teaching, there was no path. But when Kondanna understood, then the possibility of others understanding and the possibility of others gaining Enlightenment and Realisation was manifest. Traditionally it is said that what the Buddha taught on that occasion and what Kondanna understood was the four Noble Truths and the Nobel Eightfold Path.

The Four Noble Truths are a particular example of what is known as dependent arising (pratitya samutpada). This law of dependent arising is probably the most basic and important teaching in Buddhism. It is so simple that it is possible to miss it but it has such profound implications that you can spend a lifetime (or two) realising its full import. How it is usually stated in the texts is as follows: “This being that becomes, from the arising of this that arises. This not being, that does not become, from the ceasing of this that ceases.” (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta 79:7) That is the law of dependent arising and that is the essence of the Buddha's Wisdom conceptualised. Concepts can be quite dry and uninviting, which again shows why we need the whole language of symbolism and myth to speak to the heart. What this teaching is saying in effect, is that everything arises in dependence upon conditions, everything is the result of a vast interconnected, interdependent, web of conditions.

This has some very far-reaching implications for all spheres of life, biological, ethical,. psychological and spiritual. One of the startling implications of this law of dependent arising is that for any one thing not to exist, everything else would have to not exist, because all the conditions that gave rise to the existence of that one thing would have to not exist also. And when we start to investigate we find that everything is connected so that the non-existence of anything implies the non-existence of everything. An example will make this clearer.

I am here giving this talk because I am a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order. The Triratna Buddhist Order exists because Sangharakshita started it in 1965. Sangharakshita started the Triratna Buddhist Order because he was a Buddhist. He was a Buddhist as a result of an experience he had on reading the Diamond Sutra at the age of sixteen. He was able to read the Diamond Sutra because it had been translated from Sanskrit. That leads to the whole set of conditions that gave rise to the translator and his interest in Sanskrit. Sangharakshita was also able to read the Diamond Sutra because it existed in the first place. That leads to a whole set of conditions going back to the Buddha and beyond. He was also able to read the Diamond Sutra because he existed. That leads back to his parents and the whole set of conditions that brought them together and further back to their parents and their parents' parents and so on. He was also able to read the Diamond Sutra because of the invention of the printing press, because of the institutions of publishing houses and bookshops and there are millions of conditions that give rise to those things.

But Sangharakshita didn't just start the Triratna Buddhist Order alone. You can't have an Order of one. Other people had to be sufficiently interested and dedicated to make it happen. But the existence of the Triratna Buddhist Order is not sufficient condition for me to be here tonight. I had to come into contact with the Order. For that to happen there had to be a Buddhist Centre. The London Buddhist Centre came into existence in dependence upon the wholehearted efforts of a large number of people, plus the financial assistance of the Greater London Council. hat leads to a whole set of conditions involving British politics, Ken Livingstone etc etc. Then of course I had to be born etc. So you see for me to be standing here giving this talk is dependent on many inter-related and interdependent conditions. I've only just touched on some of them and those conditions are dependent on other conditions and so on and so on. Now if you want to make me non-existent, not in the sense of being dead, but in the sense of never having existed, then my non-existence would entail the non-existence of all those conditions I've mentioned and that would eventually lead you to the non-existence of the whole universe. The same applies to anyone of you, of course, or to anything whatsoever. Everything arises in dependence upon conditions and ceases when those conditions cease, and all those conditions are interconnected and interdependent. This is the cosmic vision of the Buddha and this is the basic Buddhist teaching. The Four Noble Truths is an application of this teaching to the problem of suffering. The term for suffering in Buddhism is Dukkha. Dukkha is unsatisfactoriness or discomfort generally. It includes physical suffering, emotional dissatisfaction, psychological discomfort and existential unsatisfactoriness.

The first of the Four Noble Truths simply states that there is unsatisfactoriness. For unenlightened beings there is always suffering. The second Noble Truth gives the cause or origin of unsatisfactoriness. The cause of suffering, it states, is greed, hatred and spiritual ignorance. And greed, hatred and spiritual ignorance are a result of experiencing ourselves as a fixed and separate self. In reality we are not fixed, we are a process. Our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our perceptions, everything about us is always changing. There is no fixed self. And this process that we are is deeply and profoundly interconnected, intertwined and interdependent with all the other life processes around, which we, in our delusion, experience as separate ego-identities. So this is the basis for greed, hatred and spiritual ignorance and this is the cause of suffering (Dukkha).

The third Noble Truth is concerned with the cessation of suffering. Suffering ceases when the conditions which cause suffering cease; namely greed, hatred and spiritual ignorance. Put more positively, as we generate the opposites to these three, that is, as we become more generous and less selfish, as we become more kind and loving and less given to ill-will and hatred, as we become more aware and wise and less spiritually deluded, then our suffering lessens because we no longer look for satisfaction and security where satisfaction and security cannot be found. It is worth noting at this point that physical suffering, which is an inevitable consequence of having a body, does not stop because we become less selfish or more kind and so on, but our attitude to physical suffering can change totally so that we come to accept the realities of bodily decay and death with ever greater equanimity. The fourth Noble Truth tells us how to bring about the cessation of Dukkha, the end of unsatisfactoriness. The way to do it, according to the fourth Noble Truth, is to follow the spiritual path and the spiritual path is formulated as the Eightfold Path.

This brings us back to Vairocana. Vairocana's mudra, or gesture, is the “Turning of the Wheel” and his emblem is the Wheel of the Dharma, the Dharmachakra. A Dharmachakra is an eight-spoked wheel with the spokes extending beyond the circumference. The eight spokes represent the the Noble Eightfold Path and the wheel represents the setting in motion of the Buddha's Teaching. The Dharmachakra is often used as a symbol of Buddhism in the way that a cross symbolises Christianity or a crescent moon symbolises Islam. Sometimes Vairocana is depicted holding a Dharmachakra delicately in his hands.

The gesture of teaching and the Dharmachakra are central to the symbolism of Vairocana. They represent the importance, the central importance even, of communication. It is as if to say that because of the nature of Reality, because of the interpenetrating, interconnected nature of consciousness, an experience is not an experience until it is communicated. Enlightenment is not really Enlightenment until it is communicated. Inherent in the experience is the need to communicate it. This is the Compassion aspect of Enlightenment. Wisdom in not Wisdom without Compassion and Compassion is not Compassion without Wisdom. The Enlightenment experience is the perfection of Wisdom and Compassion which are in effect one experience.

Of course communication takes many forms and includes many elements. Communication can be verbal, or by example, or through symbolism, myth, story, parable, through images, sounds, even fragrances. Whatever form communication takes it is only communication when there is a receptive audience. Somebody has to be listening, looking, receptive to what's being communicated, otherwise there is no communication. Receptivity implies accepting that we don't know something. It means accepting that others may know more than we do. There is, as it were, a hierarchy of spiritual development, a hierarchy of wisdom and compassion and some people will be more spiritually developed than we are, some people will be less spiritually developed than we are. You cannot tell simply from what someone says whether they are spiritually developed or not. You need to observe them, see whether they are actually kind and generous and aware in their actions, in their speech. You need to get to know someone before you can make any guess at their spiritual development. Even then it is difficult, because if someone is much more developed than you are, you just don't have the experience to make a judgment. You have to go on intuition, as well as experience and reasoning. These three, intuition, reason and experience, are traditionally the three elements of Sraddha or faith in Buddhism.

For the Buddha to be able to communicate, for anybody to be able to communicate and especially for teaching to take place, there needs to be receptivity. We need to be receptive. We need to listen and not just listen with our ears, but listen with our hearts. In other words, if a communication is to take place, if teaching is to take place, then our attitude is all important. If we have a cynical attitude, we will learn nothing. If we have an arrogant attitude, we will learn nothing. If we have a questioning attitude, we will learn. If we are engaged and interested, we learn. 

Again, maybe a little story will illustrate this point more clearly. This is from the Zen tradition and some of you may have heard it before. It concerns a certain learned professor, who presumably knew all about Zen, who goes to visit a Zen Master. He has some question he wants answered. When he is shown into the room to see the Zen Master, the Zen Master very politely offers him tea, which he very politely accepts with a bow. This is Japan after all. So the Zen Master, as host, pours the tea, very mindfully he picks up the teapot and very mindfully he pours. All is silent as it should be when a Zen Master pours tea and he slowly pours the tea into the cup and the cup fills up and he continues to pour and the cup gets even more full and he continues to pour and the cup overflows and the professor doesn't know what to do. But the tea is running across the table, so eventually he shouts “my cup is full, there is no room for any more.” The Zen Master stops pouring and looks at the professor for a while and then he delivers his teaching. He says, “Yes, your cup is full. There is no room for any more, you had better come back when your cup is less full.” What he was saying is that he couldn't teach the professor anything because the professor was not receptive enough. All that is by way of stressing the importance of receptivity, because without it there can be no teaching, no communication. And that is part of the significance of Vairocana's mudra or gesture of teaching and part of the significance of the Dharmachakra, the Wheel of the Dharma.

The message of the Dharmachakra is the Path to Enlightenment, it is the Noble Eightfold Path. The eight stages of the Noble Eightfold Path are Perfect Vision, Perfect Emotion, Perfect Action, Perfect Speech, Perfect Livelihood, Perfect Effort, Perfect Mindfulness and Perfect Meditation. I don't have time now to go into them. That would require another talk or eight talks. I'll refer you to the book “Vision and Transformation” by Sangharakshita, which is very readable, very practical and gives a detailed account of the Noble Eightfold Path. For now I will just say that the first stage, Perfect Vision, represents the initial intuition that there is more to life than the material or psychological, that there is a spiritual dimension to life and that the meaning of life lies in that spiritual dimension. Perfect Vision represents our first glimpse of a Reality beyond mundane life. It is the spark that lights the fuse and leaves us burning with a desire for the truth and for meaning. It is what fuels our journey on the spiritual path. Many people have this experience of a heightened perception of another Reality at some point in their lives. It may come about as a result of bereavement, solitude, reading,, the arts nature, psychedelic drugs. The other seven stages of the Noble Eightfold Path represent the working out in our daily lives of the implications of that intuition or glimpse of something. They represent the total transformation of the individual, body, speech and mind, emotion and intellect. The Noble Eightfold Path is the fourth of the Noble Truths and the Four Noble Truths are traditionally accepted to be the very first teaching of Gautama the Buddha.

We have arrived at the centre of the Mandala of the Five Buddhas, we have also arrived at the beginning of Buddhism, the source of Buddhism. From this source, from the first teaching of the Buddha there has grown a vast and beautiful forest of teachings, and one of the most beautiful of all the trees in that forest is this mandala of the five Buddhas, which contains within it all the teachings of the Buddhism, presented in a way that can touch the heart, as well as the head. Vairocana sits at the centre of this mandala teaching the Dharma, teaching the law of dependent arising, teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path and this teaching is an invitation to us and like any invitation we can refuse or accept, we can send our apologies or turn up, preferably with an empty cup!

Now there is one more aspect of the symbolism of Vairocana I would like to touch upon before I finish. Vairocana is white in colour. This represents purity. It represents ethical purity. Ethics in Buddhism in not a matter of doing what you're told and being punished if you don't. There are no commandments in Buddhism. There isn't even good and bad as we usually understand them. In Buddhism, ethics is a matter of intelligence. Buddhism teaches that there are certain kinds of behaviour, certain ways of speaking and certain attitudes which lead to suffering and there are other ways of behaving, speaking and thinking which have benign consequences. The basic principle is that actions have consequences. These actions, whether of body, speech or mind, which have good consequences, which lead to well-being and happiness, those actions are called skilful, the term is kusala. And those actions of body, speech and mind which have difficult consequences, which cause distress and unhappiness, these actions are called unskilful, the term is akusala. Rather than good and bad, we have skilful and unskilful. Skilful actions are those which come from a mind that is skilful. They arise from mental states of loving kindness, generosity and wisdom. Unskilful actions are born of a mind that harbours ill-will or hatred, greed and ignorance. The state of mind is all important in Buddhism. That is why we have the practice of meditation. This teaching of actions having consequences, skilful actions having beneficial consequences, and unskilful actions having unfortunate consequences, is known as the law of Karma. The kind of actions or behaviour that are beneficial are set out in the five precepts. These precepts are basic principles and to some degree, we have to work out their implications for ourselves and especially apply them to particular situations and circumstances. There are no easy answers in Buddhist ethics. What we really have to do is transform ourselves into the sort of person who is quite naturally ethical; the sort of person who is free from hatred, ill-will, greed and spiritual ignorance. That is what it means to purify ourselves and that is what the colour of Vairocana implies.

When I mention Karma I feel I ought to mention rebirth for the sake of completion. But I'm not going to go into rebirth just now, except to say that one does not have to believe in literal rebirth to be a practising Buddhist. It is a logical consequence of Buddhist teaching but you don't need to be logical to practice. However, since we are looking at symbolism, we could also look at rebirth symbolically. We can see that since change is the nature of existence, since everything is changing all the time, then decay, death and rebirth are happening all the time and we can apply this to our own mental states and moods. They come into being and they pass away and they return. If we bring awareness to this process, we can affect the direction of change. We can affect what is to be reborn in our minds. If we don't bring awareness to our patterns of thought and emotion we continue to go round and round on the same beaten track, an endless round of the same moods and thoughts being reborn over and over. So a spiritual death is a transformation, it is a letting go of old negative habits of thought, of speech and behaviour and a spiritual rebirth is the result of that transformation.

I hope I have given you some idea of the significance of the symbolism of Vairocana. There is much more that could be said. Symbolism by its nature cannot be just explained, which is why symbolism and myth is better able to convey something of the the vastness of Enlightened consciousness. Perhaps I'll just finish by saying that when it comes to spiritual practice, leading a spiritual life and trying to transform ourselves, it is not enough to be purely rational, reason is not enough. We need to use our intuition and imagination and not allow ourselves to be trapped by literalism. Literalism is perhaps the greatest enemy of spiritual understanding. The mind is vast and multifaceted. It cannot be encompassed by concepts and ideas but only by soaring flights of the imagination. To give you some idea how the ancient Buddhists of India allowed their imaginations free rein, I'll finish by reading you a little bit from an ancient Mahayana text, the Surangama Sutra.

“Thereupon the Buddha, sitting upon his throne in the midst of the Tathagatas and highest Bodhisattva- Mahasattvas from all the Buddha-lands, manifested his Transcendent Glory surpassing them all. From his hands and feet and body radiated supernal beams of light that rested upon the crowns of each Tathagata, Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, in all the ten quarters of all the universes, in number more numerous than the finest particles of dust. Moreover, from the hands and feet and bodies of all the Tathagatas, Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas and Princes of the Dharma, in all the ten quarters of the universes, went forth rays of glorious brightness that converged upon the crown of the Lord Buddha and upon the crowns of all the Tathagatas, Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas and Arhats present in the assembly. At the same time all the trees of the Jeta Park, and all the waves lapping on the shores of its lakes, were singing the music of the Dharma, and all the intersecting rays of brightness were like a net of splendour set with jewels and over-arching them all. Such a marvellous sight had never been imagined and held them all in silence and awe. Unwittingly they passed into the blissful peace of the Diamond Samadhi and upon them all there fell like a gentle rain the soft petals of many different coloured lotus blossoms – blue and crimson, yellow and white – all blending together and being reflected into the open space of heaven in all the tints of the spectrum. Moreover, all the differentiations of mountains and seas and rivers and forests of the Saha World blended into one another and faded away leaving only the flower-adorned unity of the Primal Cosmos, not dead and inert but alive with rhythmic life and light, vibrant with transcendental sounds of songs and rhymes, melodiously rising and falling and merging and then fading away into silence.” (A Buddhist Bible, 1994, D. Goddard,p.249)