The seeds were in themselves an amazing example of aeronautical design, but the way they were arranged in the familiar circular pattern was also remarkable. The was a pattern to the way they were all arrayed around each other, economical, complicated yet simple, elegant. On the one hand it was truly a miracle of design, on the other hand, what could me more humble or mundane? After all, there were thousands of them all over the place.
I don't know how long I sat there looking at it. Eventually a co-worker came by, and I called out to her to take a look at it. She said, "Oh yeah, I have those all over my lawn. Now I have to mow it on Saturday to get rid of them." That wasn't the reaction I was looking for.
On Sunday during the talk, Roshi spoke about Indra's Net, a Buddhist metaphor for reality. She talked about how every person, every thing is a jewel in the web of Indra's net.
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. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of dieties, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily 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 in an infinite reflecting process occurring.
Avatamsaka Sutra
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