The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

354 THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINGroughly translated means "manifestation, consciousness, andbliss." For Hindus God is the simultaneous, ecstatic explosionof all these forces and powers at once. Again, fascinating parallelswith the vision of the three kayas could be made: theSambhogakaya could perhaps be compared to ananda—thebliss energy of the nature of God—Nirmanakaya to sat, andDharmakaya to cit Anyone who has seen the great sculptureof Shiva in the caves of Elephanta in India, with its three facesrepresenting the three faces of the absolute, will have someidea of the grandeur and majesty of this vision of the divine.Both of these mystical visions of the essence, nature, andaction of the divine dimension show a distinct yet suggestivelysimilar understanding to the Buddhist one of the differentand interpenetrating levels of being. Isn't it at leastthought-provoking that a threefold process is seen at the heartof each of these different mystical traditions, even thoughthey do view reality from their own unique standpoint?Thinking about what the nature of manifestation might be,and the different but linked approaches to understanding it,leads me naturally to think about the nature of human creativity,the manifestation in form of the inner world of humanity.I have often wondered over the years how the unfolding ofthe three kayas and bardos could throw light on the wholeprocess of artistic expression, and hint at its true nature andhidden goal. Each individual act and manifestation of creativity,whether it is in music, art, or poetry, or indeed in themoments and unfoldings of scientific discovery, as many scientistshave described, arises from a mysterious ground of inspirationand is mediated into form by a translating andcommunicating energy. Are we looking here at yet anotherenactment of the interrelated threefold process we have seenat work in the bardos? Is this why certain works of music andpoetry, and certain discoveries in science, seem to have analmost infinite meaning and significance? And would thisexplain their power to guide us into a state of contemplationand joy, where some essential secret of our nature and thenature of reality is revealed? From where did Blake's linescome?To see a World in a Grain of SandAnd a Heaven in a Wild FlowerHold Infinity in the palm of your handAnd Eternity in an hour. 2