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Re: brilliant light
It is my view that all beings emit this light to some degree. It can actually be “seen”, and it is an interesting experiment for those who can enter fairly quickly into a light Samadhi to perceive this light. The method that was explained to me once is to “bend” the vision around the form of the body. This is an interesting experiment in a crowd to see who shines brightly. People (and sensitive animals) can often pick up on a person’s “vibe”, without knowing it is a karmic signature or aura, and this is something I think is extremely natural (i.e. not supernatural nor the product of a trance or hallucination) to occur. Hindu scriptures refer to this as well. I cannot even conceive of the radiance of the Nirmanakaya in human form. I think it would be so dazzling in the flesh as to exceed any of the lyrical descriptions recorded in the scriptures (rays of light etc.). It is recorded in scripture as well that Shakyamuni Buddha also spoke with a most wondrous voice. It seems strange to me how modern Buddhists are so quick to brush these records aside as products of hagiography. To behold the historical Buddha in person was truly an unimaginably auspicious event.
The Light that the Tathagata emits is incomparable. There is, of course, the ordinary auric light that surrounds sentient beings. I have on occasion in the past had my own aura captured with Kirlian photography, yet that is a far cry from what is portrayed here in these verses–that is likened unto Luminosity ITself.
Vajragoni:
I do have one question. Do the verses above suggest that a Bodhisattva who is not diligent can fall from this status?
Diligence must remain a constant.The Śūraṅgama Sūtra shows how even the most astute adept in the heights of Deep Samadhis, can still fall into one or more of mara’s mindtraps of the Fifty Demonic States of Mind. A heightened state of vigilance is always a primary focus.
Until the stage of avaivartika-bodhisattva (non-retrogressive-bodhisattva) – then one can no longer backslide. So I read in the texts.
It is hard for me to understand. But I will be diligent.
n.yeti: it is normal to brush aside that which appears unknown and strange. Without having the karma and merit to meet a true teacher, I am afraid it is very hard to encounter that light. I remember in the past I would find the passages about the rays of light emitted from Buddha’s swastika either funny or offensive to my intelligence, or both! I thought it was childish! That was the level of my arrogance and ignorance.
Without “opening the eyes that can read the sutras” how can you read the sutras, as Bassui would say? Well, my eye has not really opened yet, but it is the case that the light can be felt even thought closed eyes. Once I asked Tozen about this “light” and how come that it feels almost like bodily bliss? I thought: if that light is fundamentally beyond the skandhas, how come I feel it through my skandhas (as some kind of bliss)?
He replied that while that Light is fundamentally beyond the senses (it is the unitary light that is split, gets divided through the prism of the senses), when it “touches” our skandhic filtering, it feels like bodily bliss, or perhaps the aura your describe. It gets “translated”, as it were, into bodily feelings, that can be very blissful. I hope I reproduced the answer correctly! My memory isn’t as good as I would like it to be.
Yes, I too recall the same reaction. How foolish I was, how lacking in goodness. For no other reason than my own stupidity, I looked down upon the sages for attempting to describe that which is beyond all words.