From H.H. The Dalai Lama to Vimalakirti Sutra
When I presented my designs for Milarepa Center to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Middlebury College audience in 1984, he asked me the basis for the statement I made regarding the placement of buildings on the land. I answered it had something to do with feng-shui. Instead of giving reason for this, which I was unable to do, I responded with particular features to look for: situating buildings as if the landscape were like an armchair: mountains behind, hills to the sides, open in front….
His question didn’t go away, nor did my dissatisfaction with my response. Over subsequent years, I turned his question around in my mind to refer to the underlying theme or foundation for the design, not just the basis for feng-shui siting; and caused me to realize the necessity to establish grounding for my work.
Three years later, while washing dishes in the kitchen of my home and internally discoursing on The Question, I noted the thought of two phrases: Buddha-nature and emptiness. My teacher, Zasep Rinpoche, at that time was giving teachings on the Uttaratantra of Maitreya, specifically the chapter on the seed of the Buddha, also called Buddha-nature, or tathagatagarbha. For whatever reason, in no less than a flash, I put the two together, stating in my mind: the foundation for the design of Milarepa Center was Buddha-nature and the emptiness of inherent existence. I had nothing in particular to link them, nothing else followed but to continue washing dishes.
I began to play with the link identified in the Uttaratantra between emptiness and Buddha-nature, deluding myself, perhaps, that it had relevance to a foundation for the design of Milarepa Center. To compound this obscure notion, the importance of a journey to Bodhgaya, scene of the Buddha’s enlightenment (see 2:2001), took hold, thinking that my pilgrimage to this place also had relevance to the foundation. Now I was looking for a way to connect emptiness and Buddha-nature with Bodhgaya.
Not ending there, a potential new link developed in my mind, and that was the necessity of Dharma practice for my designing gardens and designing gardens as a requisite for my Dharma practice. Yet, where was this convoluted path going? How could I get through the maze from Milarepa Center to H. H. the Dalai Lama to emptiness and Buddha-nature, to the Journey to Bodhgaya, to Dharma practice other than through some obscure internal machination?
Classical texts on garden-making say study the works of great masters: how they learned to do what they did. Andre LeNotre, Capability Brown, Frederick Law Olmsted – brilliant designers: through their artistry they enable garden to meet landscape, provoking profound and subtle responses within the heart. However, rarely would mention be made of the manner in which they proceeded to design and construct their work to enrich spiritual development, like Gaudi’s expressions of Heaven’s Muse; more important in history was how the design itself enabled others to respond with wonder and delight.
While studying examples of their gardens have helped me to learn what they did, I’ve continued to ask if they would offer me tools to probe the depths of myself, so that even if I could copy their works, and even if I could cultivate a genius for design within myself, how would gardens of these renowned designers teach me how the design process becomes a medium for opening and guiding me along a spiritual path?
Advised to look most closely at the gardens attributed to Buddha Shakyamuni, nothing in my continuing research has been able to dissuade me of the conviction that of all to whom I regard with great esteem, the first Buddhist gardens would have the most profound influence on my work. Assuming the Buddha had a hand in either inspiring or making the gardens in which he taught, even at Bodhgaya, where he showed the manner in which to attain enlightenment, who else could be a better teacher, not only for what he did, even more dramatically, for the tool he used to carry it out – the enlightened mind.
AH-HA, I began to think: the enlightened mind was the source of the most profound landscape; the trick was to determine if this was true, and if so, to see what he did, learn how he did it and why these gardens work: an almost impossible task, because of our inability to know how a Buddha thinks.
The vessel holding these seemingly distinct stories together came forward with my recent discovery and reading of Bob Thurman’s paraphrasing of the Vimalakirti Sutra in his latest book Infinite Life. Having translated the sutra in 1976, this Infinite Life translation was a more recent and lifelike rendition where he wrote about the 500 disciples traveling to the Buddha to ask: “On the road to enlightenment, how do we make our world beautiful? How do we turn it into the perfect Buddha world?”
Struck by thousand volts of lightning propelled by 84,000 goddesses, all chanting in unison: THE QUESTION!!! THIS IS YOUR QUESTION!!!! The question raised in the Vimalakirti Sutra: On the road to enlightenment, how do we make our world beautiful, was analogous to the questions I now derived from that asked by His Holiness the Dalai Lama: What is the foundation for the design of the sacred landscape? What is the basis for designing the garden for meditation? What is the grounding for designing a place of beauty?
And, in this Sutra, the Buddha responded by teaching: The magnificent landscape is none other than the expression of the Buddha’s mind, the physical manifestation of the Six Perfections, the mode of operation of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It is a reflection of Bodhicitta, the altruistic mind actively engaged on the path of enlightenment. It is the manner in which the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas view the world, through the wisdom of the two truths: their wisdom of the nature of reality (emptiness of inherent existence of all phenomena) and the reality of nature (all phenomena arising in dependence upon causes and conditions). So that the perfection and beauty of a Buddha-field reflects the perfection and beauty of the Buddha’s mind.
Furthermore, I discovered that the Uttaratantra of Maitreya identifies the Buddha-nature as the source of all virtuous qualities of a sentient being and the foundation of spiritual development on the path of Enlightenment; and that the Buddha-nature, within each and every sentient being, is endowed with the essence of the Buddha, indistinguishable from the reality of nature and the nature of reality.
You can see the unparalleled joy at the discovery that my musing appeared to be on the right track; which I could seek to work into a logical theory to support my dish washing discourses, weaving together His Holiness’ questions about the design of Milarepa Center, through the teachings of Vimalakirti Sutra and Uttaratantra, by way of the journey to see the Buddha’s works at Bodhgaya, to discover foundations for designing sacred landscape.
(See 2:2006).
1:2006