One day, Empress Wu asked Master Fazang if he could give her a simple and tangible demonstration of the principle of cosmic interdependence – of the relationship between the One and the Many, between God and His creations, and of the relationship all things have with one another.
Fazang set to work and arranged one of the palace chambers so that eight large mirrors stood at the eight points of the compass – east, west, north, south, northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest. He then placed two additional mirrors, one on the ceiling and one on the floor. A single candle was suspended from the ceiling at the center of the room.
When the Empress entered, Fazang lit the candle.
“How magnificent!” she exclaimed. “How beautiful!”
Fazang pointed to the reflections of the flame in each of the ten mirrors and said:
“Look, Your Majesty. This illustrates the relationship between the One and the Many, between God and each of His creations.”
The Empress replied,
“Yes indeed, Master. But what is the relationship between each being and every other being?”
Fazang answered,
“Simply observe, Your Majesty, how each mirror not only reflects the single flame at the center of the room, but also reflects the reflections of that flame in all the other mirrors, until an infinite number of flames fills them all.
All of these reflections are identical in one sense, for they are interchangeable. Yet in another sense, each exists separately. This reveals the true relationship between every being and every other being.
Of course, Your Majesty, I must point out that this is only a crude and static metaphor for the true state of affairs in the universe. The universe is infinite, and everything within it is in constant multidimensional motion.”
Fazang then covered one of the reflections of the flame and demonstrated how every seemingly insignificant change affects the entire organism of the world.
Finally, to conclude his presentation, he took a small crystal sphere and said:
“Now watch, Your Majesty, how all these great mirrors and the countless forms of their reflections are themselves reflected within this tiny sphere.
See how the infinitely small contains the infinitely great, and how the infinitely great contains the infinitely small, without conflict.
Ah, if only I could also demonstrate to you the unobstructed interpenetration of time and eternity – of past, present, and future. But alas, that is a dynamic process that must be understood on an entirely different level…”
Osho offers a beautiful commentary on this story:
“Nothing exists independently of the whole. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. As individuals, we are part of the whole, not separate from it.
What each of us sees is slightly different because we live in realities colored by our past experiences – by what we have been exposed to, what we have lived through, endured, learned, and accepted as true.
As a result, we never see things as they are; we see them as we are. Therefore, ‘reality’ is, at best, subjective, because no one sees the universe through our eyes – eyes that, as I explained earlier, are shaped by countless biases.
Although we all come from the same source, no two people share the exact same reality. Our realities may overlap, and this is why relationships can be such a complex undertaking.
How difficult it is to help another person see the world through our eyes, to share our life experience, and to perceive life through the lens of our thoughts, perspectives, feelings, and opinions – all of which have been formed through countless experiences that they themselves have never had.”
Author: Vasil Stoyanov
