Quotation
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.