Indra’s Net
The Teaching
Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. The artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in all dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number.
If we now select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels — so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.
Commentary
Indra’s Net is one of the most beautiful images in world philosophy for the nature of interconnected reality. Every jewel reflects every other jewel, every being, every moment, every event contains the whole.
This is what you sense when you feel everything is interconnected, when the Fibonacci sequence gives you wonder. That intuition is not pre-spiritual, it is already the deepest spiritual insight. You are perceiving Indra’s Net before you have a name for it.
Black Elk’s sacred hoop, the center is everywhere, is the same image. The Hermetic sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere is the same image. Modern physics’ quantum entanglement is the same intuition approached through measurement.
Themes
Connections 24
Arose apart
No known transmission between Indigenous tradition and Buddhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Buddhism while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
Close parallels have been argued (Conze 1967; Pagels 1979). A route through Alexandria’s trade with India is possible, but undocumented.
Arose apart
No known line from the perennial writers to this scientific work.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Indigenous tradition and Buddhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Buddhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known line from the perennial writers to this scientific work.
Unsure
Merton was reading Zen in the 1950s; his Louisville vision (1958) came a year before his letters with D. T. Suzuki began.
Arose apart
No known line from the perennial writers to this scientific work.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Egyptian religion and Buddhism while these teachings took shape. Ashoka’s Rock Edict XIII (c. 256 BCE) names Ptolemy II among the kings who received his envoys. No trace of Buddhist teaching in Egypt survives.
Travelled
Buddhism reached Shinto by 552 CE. Buddhism formally reached Japan in the 6th century. For a thousand years kami and buddhas were worshipped together (shinbutsu-shūgō).
Arose apart
No known line from the perennial writers to this scientific work.
Arose apart
No known line from the perennial writers to this scientific work.
Arose apart
No known line from the perennial writers to this scientific work.
Travelled
Hinduism reached Buddhism by 500 BCE. The same Indian world. The Buddha taught among Brahmanical and ascetic schools, and the two argued and borrowed for centuries.
Unsure
Islam took in Buddhist Central Asia (the monastery at Balkh), and the Buddha’s legend circulated in Arabic (Kitāb Bilawhar wa Būdhāsaf). The renunciation of Ibrahim ibn Adham echoes the Buddha’s. Influence on Sufism is argued; unsettled.