User:B9 hummingbird hovering/Beacon of Certainty by Mipham/Topic1/sky-flowers

User:B9_hummingbird_hovering/sky-flower

Sky-flowers
kūge 空花 ke 空華 kokūge 空華 (the first character is noise) :-(

The motif of sky-flowers is a device used in Buddhadharma poetry, logic and iconography.

In Buddhadharma the sky-flower is a metaphor and a teaching tool for something, a 'thing', that is beyond or independent of 'causes' (Sanskrit: hetu) and 'conditions' (Sanskrit: pratyaya). Therefore, a non-thing. If there was such a thing evident it would be an entity in the Buddhadharma, it would be an existent. An existent is something that is neither founded nor predicated nor dependent upon anything else in any way. An existent also takes into consideration the "Neither one nor many" logistic architecture. Generally in the Buddhadharma an 'existent' must be indivisible and not constituted by parts or segmentation. Segmentation either spatially or temporally compromises an 'existent'. Hence, if something that appears is conceived with the moving mind, the stream of the mind, the mindstream, then it is not 'existent'. When the mind is still and perceives Dharmata or the Absolute through any of the senses, that is with enlightened mind[stream], this is 'unique' as it encompasses all causes and conditions and is beyond them. Dharmata and the Absolute is a unity, indivisible: where subject, object and the linking act of perception are a single, unreplicable experience, timeless.

Though a flower could be in the sky due to a number of causes the conditions are rare and unlikely that would keep one in that state. In truth, though possible as we can conceive of a possible world where there are sky-flowers it is unlikely in our current worldview and this is the import of the teaching. A possible world with sky flowers could be a world where an epiphyte is born in the air due to magnetic currents, somewhat like the possible physics of the Meissner Effect in support of the possible world of the Hallelujah Mountains in the fictional universe of the movie Avatar (2009). As an aside, the 'possible world' flora depicted in this movie is breathtaking. For an air-plant to be suspended in their air like the Halleluja Mountains would require though that the plant have some form of magnetic property. I do not know if there is any living plant with magnetic properties that could be suspended like a magnet in the Meissner Effect. This is just one an example. In another, a plant could be very light and aerodynamic and keep itself born at certain times of the day for example by the adventitious use of hot-air currents somewhat comparable to the employ of hot air currents by vultures to get their vast ungainly weight efficiently airborn. All that said, a sky-flower is whether possible or not, an anomaly. Flowers on Earth generally spring from plants which are terrestrial. I wonder if air-plants (Epiphytes) have flowers? They often look like a flower even though they are foliage. Sky flowers would be and are to be considered 'precious rare', rare as hen's teeth. That is blooming unlikely!

Followers of illusion
Khapushpa, flowers in the sky, spots before the eyes, Musca Volitantes; illusion, The Indian Hinayanists style Mahayanists, Shunyapushpa, S'UnyapuS.pa, sky-flower heretics, or followers of illusion.

...am i reading correctly that this was a pejorative term of the Hinayana for the Mahayana?

Jaina
The Jaina ... Yes indeed! A thing which is strictly in itself, which has absolutely nothing in common with all other things in the whole world, is a non-entity, a flower in the sky! If you wish to distinguish it from a non-entity you must admit 'Thingness' as a real Category, just as Causality and Substantiality.[32]

32. TS, kar. 1713 - tasmat kha-puspa-tulyatvam icchatas tasya vastunah, vastutvam nama, samanyam estavyam, tat-samanata.

A solid source for this quote

Bugger it doesn't have the abbreviations for the Jaina source in the Google Books. I may have this text as a PDF. I have one of Tscherbatsky's Logic textbooks. There might be a source in Internet Archives or Scribd. I know this text is in a million copies at Baillieu.

Poetry
"'At that moment of the fourth watch when the dawn came up and all that moves was not stilled, the great seer reached the stage that knows no alteration, the sovereign leader, the state of omniscience. When as the Buddha he knew this truth the earth swayed like a person drunk with wine. The four quarters shone bright with crowds of siddhas and mighty drums resounded in the sky. Pleasant breezes blew softly and heaven rained moisture from a cloudless sky and from the trees there dropped flowers and fruit out of due season as if to do him honor. At that time, just as in paradise, the mandarala flowers, lotuses and water lilies of gold and beryl fell from the sky and bestrewed the place of the Shakya sage.'" -  Ashvaghosa, Sanskrit poet, Quoted by Zoketsu Norman Fischer in his Talk Six

Ashvaghosa, now we are getting to her root of this... *hehehehe* a bit of a F-slip

Dogen with his bounty of natural metaphors employed the motif of sky-flowers often. Shobogenzo: ... we are all sky-flowers as are all Buddhadharma doctrines, we are but imaginations of ourselves... all teachings are upaya, no teaching is definitive, not even definitive sutra! Ephermeral and Adamantine entwined. Openness of Shunyata. Flowers are mandalas.

Bhavaviveka
Bhavaviveka

MadhyamakahRIdaya and TarkajvAlA

Dharmakirti
Dharmakirti (ca. 7th century)

Tillemans (1999: p.13) holds that: "We see quite clearly in the Buddhist logicians' use of inferences like the so-called bAdhakapramANa (based on DharmakIrti's VAdanyAya) that the example can be a nonexistent thing, like a rabbit's horn or a flower in the sky, and that the scope of the vyApti must therefore range over nonexistents as well as existents. Nor is it particularly infrerquent or revolutionary for Buddhists to give such nonexistent items as examples--BhAvaviveka, who was well before DharmakIrti, used the example of the sky-flower in MadhyamakahRIdaya and TarkajvAlA too and even DignAga used the example 'space' (AkAsha) in his Hetucakra, an example which is not actually existent for a Buddhist."

There is a lot more in the Tillemans book on Rabbit's Horns and SkyFlower.

Mipham
Mipham's 'The Sword of Wisdom' as rendered by Adam Pearcey (2004) of Lotsawa House: These appearances in all their rich variety Arise through dependent origination. Something that is truly independent, Like a lotus [in the sky], will not appear. (5)

ཇི་ལྟར་སྣང་བ་འདི་དག་ནི། ji ltar snang ba 'di dag ni/ རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་འབྱུང་ཚུལ་གྱིས་སྐྱེ། rten cing 'brel 'byung tshul byis skye/ ལྟོས་པ་མེད་གང་ནམ་མཁའ་ཡི། ltos pa med gang nam mkha' yi/ པདྨོ་བཞིན་དུ་སྣང་མི་འགྱུར། padmo bzhin du snang mi 'gyur/

I placed the square brackets enclosing "in the sky" as though this may be understood and implied by the "lotus" and indeed nonsensical if the logical adage isn't known. That it is implied by Mipham demonstrates that he considered any reader of his text would be well versed in the literary pervasion of this pedagogic stock example. In the Buddhadharma and particularly Dzogchen philosophy and poetry, "sky" and "space" is attributed with the qualities of "immutable, unchanging" (Wylie: mi 'gyur). As the medium and placeholder, "sky", holds the space for the play of "dependent origination" (Sanskrit: Pratityasamutpada) which is the dance of Void (Sanskrit: Shunyata). This Mystery of seemingly endless changing of forms is the poetic and philosophical dance of creation and destruction of Naturaja, the dance of energetic movement and exchange, the immutable law of reciprocity.

Hagiography
Some legends say that when Gautama was born the earth shook, rivers stopped flowing, flowers fell from the sky, and a lotus flower sprang from the place where he first touched the earth....Beauford...source a source with more authority...

Iconography
Dunhuang and the Mogao Caves: "'The Mogao cave temples near the town of Dunhuang, at the edge of the Gobi desert in north-west China, are filled with one of the most extensive and exquisite collections of Buddhist paintings and sculptures in the world. Every surface of the walls and ceilings is covered with painted clay stucco, some 45,000 square metres in all: graceful acrobats of the sky scatter flowers and garlands, while dancers and musicians celebrate the beauties of the Buddhist Pure Lands; row upon row of miniature images of the Buddha, subtly varied in colouring or dress, adorn virtually every cave, and give the site its popular name of the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. The Dunhuang caves remain one of the most perfectly preserved of the world's great religious sanctuaries.'"

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=DbxE8zOuRbUC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=sky+flowers+buddhism&source=bl&ots=ozK1GN8jtz&sig=a1D30JghOTyLF7uJV8X7wTAqOkw&hl=en&ei=SQ_4SqiYA4WPkQXtnJiyAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CB0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=&f=false