In this issue:
When I first began training a teaching I often heard repeated is, “We train for self and other.” This is probably the most concise expression of the Bodhisattva vow there is.
As I was musing on this teaching recently an image occurred to me that illustrates this truth as a visual metaphor, that of a radio telescope:
The purpose of a radio telescope is to precisely orient itself on a celestial object to receive the signal it is radiating, and it can also be configured to transmit signals.
The signal received is often unimaginably subtle, and its source inconceivably distant. Yet, the signal has passed through the vastness of space and eons of time to reach the receiver. The signal is then processed by various instruments to reveal the characteristics and nature of the signal source.
The universe is filled with a multitude of signal sources. In order for the signal of the desired source to be found and accurately processed amid all the static, the receiver must be precisely oriented on it. This requires moving the receiver in the direction of the desired source until the signal is its strongest. The receiver locks onto the signal and no longer needs to be wandering the heavens to find it.
I find a spiritual application for this image: the Cosmic Buddha is the signal Source, and we are the receiver. The signal is transmitted on the wavelength of Buddha Nature. And, the Source’s signal is available for reception by all “receivers”—all beings. Ordinarily, our reception is distorted by a noisy static of signals sourced by greed, anger, and delusion. The Cosmic Buddha is constantly radiating a pure and undistorted signal of compassion, love, and wisdom but too often we focus our receiver on the worldly distortion being transmitted around us. We lock on that instead of the true Source.
At some point, if we are fortunate, something jars our receiver into a wider search beyond the narrow wavelength of worldly life. Often an experience of deep suffering unlocks the receiver to search beyond the habitual coordinates of emotionalism, greed/aversion, fear, despair, anger, dualism, materialism, obsessive thoughts, compulsive-impulsive acts, and other manifestations of confused self-preoccupation. Or, the motivation can simply be a deep and compelling intuition that there is a signal Source more true and affirming than the static that is distorting our experience of daily life.
In this metaphor the processing of the signal Source is our heart-mind. It is precisely oriented by the stillness-silence of meditation, and the application of the Precepts in daily life. Our ongoing training in pure meditation and Precepts provides the coordinates for our heart-mind to lock onto the strongest orientation on the Source. As our orientation stabilizes, we begin to pick up signals too subtle for our discursive mind to apprehend, but not the deep intuition of our heart-mind. The signal is a clear message of compassion, love, and wisdom that overrides the distorted static of greed, anger, and delusion. The static never completely disappears, and can dis-orient our receiver off its focus if we stop paying attention to the Source signal. But once we find that Signal, and the more we listen to It, the easier it becomes to lock back onto It. As the Adoration of the Buddha’s Relics teaches, “the Truth enters into us” and, just as a radio telescope can also function as a transmitter, “we enter the Truth.”
Another dimension of the teaching “we train for self and other” is that “we train with self and other.” An image that recalls Indra’s Net is that of a group of radio telescopes connected together in what is called a Very Large Array:
In this configuration each telescope has a slightly different angle on the source. The data received by each telescope is combined with the others to resolve a more complete and refined image.
Anyone who has sat with others in a meditation hall has experienced a special kind of spiritual energy generated by the group. Because of their individual karma, each meditating “receiver” is oriented on a different (sometimes wide) angle to the Source. Yet, each contributes their meditating energy to the collective energy of the group. The spiritual energy flows from the Source through the individual receivers to combine with the others to create a result greater than the sum of the parts. It is an energy that helps each individual meditator orient more directly and purposefully on the Source. And, it is an energy that the individual meditators take with them out of the hall to their own sitting places.
Just as a radio telescope can both receive and transmit, the cosmic energy received by an individual meditating receiver, and “array” of meditators, is transmitted into the world. Thus, the training of oneself naturally expands into training for others. The more the distortion of the egocentric self is resolved, the clearer and more powerful the signal is radiated and received by others. Indeed, we are likely to not even know in this lifetime many of the beings affected by our signal. That is why training to receive the clearest and most positive signal to transmit is the greatest gift we can give ourself and other.