Creative Writing 2: Amitabha

Past the galleries of knowledge my curious eyes scanned for relevance. Deep in the catacombs of written word I scoured. I am searching for a very particular figure, a hero, an archetype of worlds to soothe the sufferings of the physical life. I didn't believe in such deities before but know my eyes have awakened beyond the wheel of Samsara to the infinite possibilities that fill the ether of space. I knew I what I was looking for, but didn't know what it was, only that when I found it would stand out in a way I could not hide from. As I stumbled into the section of Buddhism I found an attractive magnetism healing the wounds that left scars in my destiny.

Amitabha: The Buddha of Life and Light. The name was familliar, not this incarnation surely. The cover showed a red Buddha offering a serene mudra. The back of the left hand in right palm together at the waist. The forefingers were curled up and meeting at the last knuckle, above them were the delicately connected thumbs placed with enlightened care. I knew all of this imagery, from where? Some strange dream, a past life, some ancestral DNA Codon, or through some prophetic vision I was imparted. The book described the Pure Land of the West, where Enlightened souls went to dwell eternally after their karma had been fulfilled. I had to meet this Amitabha, I was burning with questions of the Pure Land, it's conditions, it's environment, and it's transience.

“If you say his name as your human life ends, your spirit will depart through the Crown Chakra and be taken to Enlightenment in his Pure Land. The Pure Land is always open.”

The spectacled librarian said with her accomplished, bodhisattvic smile. How was my mortal brain supposed to form a synaptic connection to respond to that? I just smiled and sent the vibe that I needed to see it myself before I believed it.

With a new lucidity like the world breathes as it is on the cusp of seasons I left the Naropa Library out to the courtyard. I found my next point of mindfulness in a serene garden. Around me were mountains that mated with clouds from an artists calligraphy brush. This garden was elevated high above a rich jungle fed by a waterfall that formed a delicate pond beneath my stone stool.

“Not too high that there is nothing left to see, and not so low that that the journey looks impossible.”

I turned to see who this voice was, descending from a dharmic pagoda with a stone courtyard on which dragons danced, descended the Red Buddha of Compassion. I was stunned to be looking on the face of Enlightenment, but I guess that is the way it is meant to be received, as you walk around gardens of knowledge a brief pause to enjoy the scenery brings you face to face with the wisdom that all mind hopes to achieve.

“Amitabha” I spoke through a tongue that coiled with nervousness and recognition of authority.

I received back a calm, smile, that kind of smile that shows you behind the face is the supreme achievement of all beings. Before me was the light of awareness that shines through all suffering, that evolution that achieves from every loss, trial, threat, and death.

“Since you are here you must be Bodhisattva.” Amitabha explained like a champion of all foreign languages. He answered my question as if before I asked it like he saw it forming in my mind and body. “The difference between Buddha and Bodhisattva is Buddha has already become his full capacity of Enlightenment, and left the world of Samsara completely, Bodhisattva says, there is always more to gain, more to feel, more to heal, and so they come back to places like Earth to Enlighten, and become Enlightened. Now understand this, both are Enlightened beings, for both exist naturally in all beings. We are nondual, we recognize eachother in the other, we have been already eachother. Within the heart of the Bodhisattva is the Buddha, within the heart of the Buddha is the Bodhisattva.”

Now a great light blazes in the heart of Amitabha, as it radiates in the ten directions it forms a golden aura around him. His right hand exposes his palm with fingers towards the sky, his left hand offers his palm with fingers towards the ground. The golden aura around burst into flames combusting forth the myriad dharmic beings, protectors, and bodhisattvas contained in the heart wisdom of Amitabha. Never before had I seen such a display of Enlightenment and never again will it be seen for it is only this moment. The venerable bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteshvara emerged from his heart and aligned the expressions of wisdom, fearlessness, intensity, compassion, power, and spaciousness of the myriad beings in to a geometric mandala of all colors and frequencies. It formed a great portal to some space beyond all measurement of size and element, a portal to the point I knew as the origin of creation, the center of all things. There in that center surrounded by worlds atop lotus that bloomed in ether and rooted in earth was the pristine white original form of the Buddha, Mahavairocana.

The sound this spectacle made vibrated through the record of all human experience, it renewed love for myself for the sake of all beings. It vibrated the very blueprint of thought, emotion, and soul with a fractal of fourth dimensional swastikas along which life force traveled to all matter and energy. This sacred sound, my mind attempted to interpreted it and it sounded like a choir of high pitch angles and the deepest octave of throat singing monks. With all beings dedicated to making this sound, I at last heard the sacred prayer. “All things become hallowed in thy name, Amitabha.”

As soon as I had seen it I was pulled back to the mundane world of Earth. Looking around at familiar objects they know carried a special glow in their architechture, I could see the deliberate focus in the placement of every physical object, knowing now the source it all extended from. What I had seen was no dream, it was a vision of the next stage consciousness, the new level of reality we all have our place in protecting. Now I know when I am lost I can listen to that vibrational structure of the universe and become the space that hears that most sacred name. “Amitabha.”