Shakyamuni Gold Mandala

THE BUDDHA SAKYAMUNI, at the moment of*nlightenment, invoked the earth as witness, as indicated by the fingers of his right hand, which spread downward in bhumisparshanamudra, the "gesture of touching the earth. " As the Buddhist Sutras relate, the sun and moon stood still, and all the creatures ofThe world came to offer obeisance to the Supreme One who had broken through the boundaries of egocentric existence. All Buddhist art celebrates this supreme moment and leads the viewer toward the Buddha's experience of selfless and unsurpassed enlightenment. The earliest forms of Buddhist art were semiabstract: bodhi-trees, wheels, stupas, and even the Buddha's stylized footprints served as supports for contemplating what was ultimately beyond words or form. As the Buddha himself continually taught, it was not fie who was to be revered but the possibility he presented. "don't look to me, " he said, "but to the enlightened state. "The first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha are said to have been drawn on canvas from rays of golden light emanating from his body. Later Buddhist art pictured the Buddha in numerous manifestations, but always as an archetype of human potential, never as a historically identifiable person. All forms of the Buddha, however, are commonly shown seated on a lotus throne, a symbol of the mind's transcendent nature. As a lotus rises from the mud to bloom unsullied in open space, so too does the mind rise through the discord of its own experience to blossom in the boundlessness of unconditional awareness.