The Reclining Buddha

 

 It’s 150 feet long and fifty feet high and nearly fills the very large and crowded hall that houses it. The Reclining Buddha is so big that it is impossible to see it all at once.  Standing in the presence of its immensity, with people swirling all around me, I wondered where I could go to best appreciate the moment. Like with the Emerald Buddha, I needed to find a place where I could become still.

Taking Edna Leana’s hand, I slid past a bevy of picture takers and found a little lane alongside the Buddha about midway down the length of his body. Finding an area where we would not be in anyone’s way, we sat down in a place where we could see in one direction his head resting on his hand and in the other direction, the top of his feet. I closed my eyes and silently repeated the Parvardigar Prayer of Meher Baba.

   

                        “Oh Parvardigar, the preserver and protector of all,

                               You are without beginning and without end,

                      Non-dual, beyond comparison and none can measure you…”

 

 My experience with the Reclining Buddha was similar to my experience with the Emerald Buddha, but for different reasons. The latter by virtue of its placement high above the floor of the temple, the former by virtue of its great size. In these two different ways, both suggested a state of consciousness beyond everything in and of the world. Good and bad, saint and sinner, rich and poor, i.e., a state of consciousness where all of the dualities experienced in life were not only inconsequential but truly non-existent.

All we toil for, all we hold so dear, all we seek or avoid, are absolutely nothing in that exalted state of consciousness depicted by these Buddhas. As a meditation, one can try to fathom this exalted state that transcends all the thoughts and feelings, joys and sorrows, etc. that continuously run through our minds every moment of our waking lives —like passing dreams. Indeed, one senses the truth Gurdjieff once expressed when he said that humanity is imprisoned in a cell. In that cell, one can sit in the light or the dark, be productive or not, have ambitions high or low, but it is still just a cell in a prison and to become truly free, one must escape—somehow.

 

 

The Reclining Buddha

 

If your bigness is beyond my sight,

Then is my smallness beyond yours?

 

What the Emerald Buddha accomplished through aloofness

You accomplish by size.

 

“How can I find a way to be here?” I wondered when I first glimpsed your size and sensed the immensity of your august presence.

I felt like an ant among the ants that pushed past me with cameras to capture a glimpse of your sugar.

But do cameras even have tongues to taste?

 

I found a place in your presence and began to sense my breath,

How many breaths does it take to make a life?

How many lifetimes of an ant passes in even one breath of yours?

 

I contemplate ETERNITY —

I become as big as you and never notice

Jonathan Swift as he travels beneath me.

 

 

 

                                                                                                          © copyright Michael Kovitz 2006

 

 

 

 

           

                                                         The Emerald Buddha

 

Edna Leana and I entered and found our way to a vacant place on the floor. Some monks came in and knelt a few feet in front of us. They carried with them offerings of flowers, undoubtedly from devotees, and they prayed and meditated as well. As is my habit in such situations, I closed my eyes and attempted to establish a state of inner silence in order to be open to the very powerful energy of the temple. Edna Leana and I sat for perhaps an hour, during which time I began to feel that it was the distance of the Emerald Buddha from the activity below that gave this Wat its unique experience. From his height, which for me is synonymous with his state of consciousness, he seemed absorbed in that state of absolute Reality and consciousness where all creation is non-existent. Below him, people were respectful or not—one woman walked around talking on her cell phone. But to the Emerald Buddha none of it seemed to matter because he was not conscious of any of it. It led me to consider the question, what, if anything, really does matter?

 Viewed from the perspective that in the end, when the final goal is attained and only eternal reality exists, then how important really is all this, i.e. all that the world holds so dear, all the distinctions we make and the significance we place on things, all of our strivings, good or bad, high or low, righteous or lewd? Sitting in this Wat, I tried to fathom the Beyond State of Divine Vacuum the Buddha called Nirvana. I remember that Gurdjieff once said something to the effect that, “He who takes everything seriously cannot be very serious.” Perhaps my contemplation creates a perspective to his simple remark? 

                                                        

 

                                                                 The Emerald Buddha 

                                                         (In Nirvikalpa Samadhi)

                                                                                                          By Michael Kovitz 

 Birth and breath,

Life and death,

The sacred and the mundane,

 

Joys and sorrows,

Good and bad,

Curses and prayers,

Pass beneath you —

 

I look up to glimpse you

Ensconced in your heavenly tower.

I wonder: When you see only everything,

Does this everything include nothing?

 

I close my eyes and watch my thoughts,

Does any of it really matter?

 

Your presence beyond reminds me,

My world is dust crumbling into dust —

I contemplate,

What is seeing everything without seeing nothing?

 

 

 

                                                                                                © copyright 2006 Michael Kovitz