Part 11-1
“Subhuti, suppose there were as many Ganges Rivers as there are grains of sand in the bed of the Ganges River: would the grains of sand in all those Ganges Rivers be many?” Subhuti said, “Very many, World Honoured One. The rivers themselves would be countless, let alone their sands.”
Commentary:
The core of this Sutra is to see and hear things as they are without being deluded by images and words. This is referred to as seeing things as empty, or not dwelling on anything. As put previously in Part 10-5, not dwelling on anything means seeing everything as a rabbit horn that is not real but imaginary. When we see both the grains of sand in all those Ganges Rivers and all those Ganges Rivers as rabbit horns, there is no difference not only between a grain of sand and the Ganges River but also between a single grain of sand and billions of ones. This is why the Avatamsaka Sutra says that there is no number in the functions of the Buddha, and so the enlightened are far from being deluded by numbers. In the same way, upon hearing or reading the number of the grains of sand in the Ganges River, we should be able to hear it as the number of rabbit horns instead of being deluded by the words ‘the number of the grains of sand in the Ganges River’.
To illustrate this case, ancient masters would ask their disciples if they knew the exact number of the hairs of their heads. They asked this question to see if their students could see everything as a rabbit horn without dwelling on images and words. In the same way, we should be able to know the exact number of the grains of sand in all those Ganges Rivers without dwelling on anything as we were taught by the Buddha.
Student: “What is the number of the grains of sand in all those Ganges Rivers?”
Master: “A billion to the power of a billion minus three.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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