Tag Archives: tower of Vairocana

Maitreya

We are now entering into the climatic-conclusions of the Gandavyūha-sūtra. First up: Maitreya and the Marvelous “Tower of the adornments of Vairocana”. Throughout this sutra, as well as the Avataṃsaka as a whole, we see that Vairocana rather than Gautama, occupies the premier-position of Supreme Buddha, remaining a silent—Resplendently Transcendent—figure bracketing the entire Avataṃsaka Enterprise. The Tower symbolizes the entire Dharmadhātu, the realm of Suchness, wherein the All interpenetrates the all—the entire macro and micro cosmos. Thus in the Undivided and All-Encompassing Realm of the Dharmadhātu, all things are interpenetrative. Hence, this tower is also illustrating what we referred to in an earlier blog of this series: the Fourth Dharmadhātu, or complete and undivided interconnectedness. What Sudhana will encounter in the Tower are emanations of the ultimate quiescence of All Buddhas, or the True Reality of THAT which Vairocana represents. When Sudhana gazes at the Tower, he comes to the ultimate realization: read more