Lotus as Symbol

05-19-2001, 11:07 PM

>From _Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism_ by Lama Anagarika Govinda

Part Three. Padma: The Path of Creative Vision

I
THE LOTUS AS SYMBOL OF
SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT

The lotus is the symbol of spiritual unfoldment, of the holy, the pure.
The Buddha-legend reports that when the newly born infant Siddhartha,
who later became the Buddha, touched the ground and made his first seven
steps, seven lotus-blossoms grew up from the earth. Thus each step of the
Bodhisattva is an act of spiritual unfoldment. Meditating Buddhas are
represented as sitting on lotus-flowers, and the unfoldment of spiritual
vision in meditation (dhyana) is symbolized by fully-opened lotus-blossoms,
whose centre and whose petals carry the images, attributes or mantras of
various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, according to their relative position and
mutual relationship.
In the same way the centres of consciousness in the human body (which
we shall discuss later on) are represented as lotus-flowers, whose colours
correspond to their individual character, while the number of their petals
corresponds to their functions.
The original meaning of this symbolism may be seen from the following
simile: Just as the lotus grows up from the darkness of the mud to the
surface of the water, opening its blossom only after it has raised itself
beyond the surface, and remaining unsullied from both earth and water,
which nourished it - in the same way the mind, born in the human body,
unfolds its true qualities ('petals') after it has raised itself beyond the
turbid floods of passions and ignorance, and transforms the dark powers of
the depths into the radiantly pure nectar of Enlightenment-consciousness
(bodhi-citta), the incomparable jewel (mani) in the lotus-blossom (padma).
Thus the saint grows beyond this world and surpasses it. Though his roots
are in the dark depths of this world, his head is raised into the fullness
of light. He is the living synthesis of the deepest and the highest, of
darkness and light, the material and the immaterial, the limitations of
individuality and the boundlessness of universality, the formed and the
formless, Samsara and Nirvana. Nagarjuna, therefore, said of the perfectly
Enlightened One: 'Neither being nor not-being can be attributed to the
Enlightened One. The Holy One is beyond all opposites.'
If the urge towards light were not dormant in the germ that is hidden
deep down in the darkness of the earth, the lotus would not turn towards
the light. If the urge towards a higher consciousness and knowledge were
not dormant even in a state of deepest ignorance, nay, even in a state of
complete unconsciousness, Enlightened Ones could never arise from the
darkness of samsara.
The germ of Enlightenment is ever present in the world, and just as
(according to all Schools of Buddhism) Buddhas arose in past world-cycles,
so Enlightened Ones arise in our present world-cycle and will arise in
future world-cycles, whenever there are adequate conditions for organic and
conscious life.
The historical Buddha is therefore looked upon as a link in the
infinite chain of Enlightened Ones and not as a solitary and exceptional
phenomenon. The historical features of Buddha Gautama (Sakyamuni),
therefore, recede behind the general characteristics of Buddhahood, in
which is manifested the eternal or ever-present reality of the potential
Enlightenment-consciousness of the human mind, in fact, of all conscious
life - which includes in its deepest aspect every single individual.
Superficial observers try to point out the paradox that the Buddha, who
wanted to free humanity from the dependence on gods or from the belief in
an arbitrary God-Creator, became deified himself in later forms of
Buddhism. They do not understand that the Buddha, who is worshipped, is not
the historical personality of the man Siddhartha Gautama, but the
embodiment of the divine qualities, which are latent in every human being
and which became apparent in Gautama as in innumerable Buddhas before him.
Let us not misunderstand the term 'divine'. Even the Buddha of the Pali
texts did not refrain from calling the practice of the highest spiritual
qualities (like love, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity) in
meditation a 'dwelling in God' (brahmavihara), or in a 'divine state'.
It is, therefore, not the man Gautama, who was raised to the status of
a god, but the 'divine' which was recognized as a possibility of human
realization. Thereby the divine did not become less in value, but more;
because from a mere abstraction it became a living reality, from something
that was only believed, it became something that could be experienced. It
was thus not a descending to a lower level, but an ascending, a rising from
a plane of lesser to a plane of greater reality.
Therefore the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are not merely
'personifications' of abstract principles - like those gods who are
personified forces of nature or of psychic qualities which primitive man
can conceive only in an anthropomorphic garb - but they are the prototypes
of those states of highest knowledge, wisdom, and harmony which have been
realized in humanity and will ever have to be realized again and again.
Irrespective of whether these Buddhas are conceived as successively
appearing in time - as historically concrete beings (as in Pali-tradition)
- or as timeless images or archetypes of the human mind, which are
visualized in meditation and therefore called Dhyani-Buddhas: they are not
allegories of transcendental perfections or of unattainable ideals, but
visible symbols and experiences of spiritual completeness in human form.
For wisdom can only become reality for us, if it is realized in life, if it
becomes part of human existence.
The teachers of the 'Great Vehicle', especially of the Tantric
Vajrayana, were never tired of emphasizing this, because they recognized
the danger of dwelling in mere abstractions. This danger was all the more
real in a highly developed philosophy like that of the Sunyavadins, with
which the intricate depth-psychology of the Yogacarins and Vijnanavadins
was combined.