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Quotation

Beneath Blossom Rain

Discovering Bhutan on the Toughest Trek in the World
Sir Charles eliot, an eminent Buddhist scholar in the 1930s, interpreted Indra’s Net and the Avatamsaka Sutra by saying, ‘In the heaven of Indra there is said to be a network of pearls so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it.’ “Later, in the Avatamsaka Sutra, a Buddhist student asks his teacher how Indra’s jeweled net is possible, and the teacher says if you put a dot on one jewel, there are dots on all the jewels. While this explanation was sufficient, I had trouble with the word ‘dot,’ which suggested a blemish or flaw. Instead, I preferred to think that the ‘shine’ of one jewel was reflected in all the others. For as I looked up and saw Peter smiling as he told a joke, followed by all the others smiling with him, soon it was impossible to tell who started the joke. I only knew all were shining with laughter.