Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
A Flash of Lightning in a Summer Cloud: A Zen Reflection on Passingness

A Flash of Lightning in a Summer Cloud: A Zen Reflection on Passingness

Last updated on: May 24, 2018 at 8:21 am by James Ford

A Flash of Lightning in a Summer Cloud: A Zen Reflection on Passingness 2018-05-24T08:21:36-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Diamond Sutra is one of the standard texts within the Zen schools.

With the stories of the Buddha’s awakening and Bodhidharma’s coming to China the story of Huineng, the “sixth ancestor” completes a trilogy of foundational accounts mixing legend and history and presenting the unique school that is Zen. And significantly, the last of these accounts has Huineng achieve his great insight upon hearing a line from the Diamond Sutra.

The Diamond Sutra is one of about forty texts that collectively comprise the Prajnaparamita cycle, central documents to Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is a part. Me, I find it a delight that the oldest extant printed book is in fact a copy of the Diamond Sutra.

But it is one part of the Diamond Sutra that has caught my heart this morning. It’s the gatha, or brief verse at the end of the text.

So you should view this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.

I am uncertain of the source for this translation particularly which is included in the Boundless Way Liturgy Book. But it is popular and can be found around the inter webs.

Other versions include:

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,
A mock show, dew drops, or a bubble,
A dream, a lightning flash, or cloud,
So should one view what is conditioned.

(Edward Conze)

As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space
an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble
a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning
view all created things like this.

(Red Pine)

All composed things are like a dream,
a phantom, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.
That is how to meditate on them,
that is how to observe them.

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

In her lovely reflection on the gatha, Barbara O’Brien notes how some believe this verse wasn’t originally part of the text. And, indeed, it is also found in another document within the Prajnaparamita literature, the Perfection of Wisdom in 500 Lines.

There is something magical about how it is both part of something ancient, and yet, is also independent. Some of the images are as old as Buddhism. In the Arakenanusasani Sutta, we hear the Buddha saying:

Just as a dewdrop on the tip of a blade of grass quickly vanishes
with the rising of the sun and does not stay long,
in the same way, brahmans, the life of human beings is like a dewdrop

And in the Phena Sutta:

Form is like a glob of foam;
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick —
this has been taught
by the Kinsman of the Sun.
However you observe them,
appropriately examine them,
they’re empty, void
to whoever sees them
appropriately.

But, even as it is ancient, there is something immediate about it, as well.

For me the gatha is call to noticing the passingness of life that most captures me in the moment. Not the moment. This moment. And with that immediacy it recalls the three marks of existence that are foundational to the Buddhist message.

The first of these is anitya, a noticing that all things are impermanent, existing for a moment and then passing away. The second is anatman, the noticing that nothing has a special essence, all things are composed of parts that are themselves insubstantial, or more accurately have no abiding substance. Things exist within their moments in way similar to the contemporary wave/particle theory, where from one angle quantum entities are particles and from another waves. However, this is a way of perceiving at the psychological/spiritual level of human consciousness, where our grasping tightly after things that have no enduring substance, is dukkha, that sense of discomfort, of sadness, of hurt that seems to mark so much of human existence.

So, some look at this world of flux and constant motion and see nothing but sadness. We and everything we love will pass away. But, in fact that view is missing something quite lovely, beautiful, and, most important, real.

For me the Diamond Sutra gatha is not a call to seeing “life is nasty and then you die.” That is a truth. But, it is partial. And to see only that is a great sadness.

Here, yes, we find a world in motion. Everything and everyone are/is birthed through a confluence of events, and exist only for a moment. And, yes, nothing has substance in the sense of standing outside the flow of causality. What we perceive as a person or a thing is a snapshot of a moment. But. And. Still. Everything is in motion.

Dukkha arises as a side effect of our wonderful human ability to notice and distinguish. The side effect is to reify, to make what we’ve perceived and distinguished something “permanent.” When, of course, nothing and no one is ever permanent. Hence what follows our grasping and holding too tightly that which of its nature is in motion is hurt. Can’t be done, and therefore that hurt, and a pervasive anxiousness that spoils our lives.

And. And. The good news is not a list of how to not care, but rather a middle way between thinking only motion exists or that things and people have eternal substance, that invites us into a larger and healing view. In fact this is more than a view, it is a new way of living.

Here I find that gatha taking focus. Cause and effect are not two things. But, actually, neither are they one. Rather the universe is rising and falling together. And even as we notice our aging, our faltering, we can, when we find the eye of awakening, also see the world unfolding as a mystery and a joy. A dance.

When we see into things as they actually are we encounter a beautiful dance of creation, where we rise and fall together, where our love matters because it is our giving our attention to the precious and passing.

To use the language of the West we become the eyes of God, our seeing the divine seeing, our holding without grasping becomes a divine holding, because we are nothing less than the moment being known. Actually it becomes a sort of unknowing, because our sense of self and other are loosened, and we experience each other’s joy and sorrow as our joy and sorrow.

And with that shift life takes on an aspect more important than words like “meaning” or “meaninglessness” can touch. Instead we are invited into that flashing lightning, that summer cloud, the dream that is reality.

So you should view this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.

Previous Post

May 23, 2018

Four Essential & Brief Zen Meditation Manuals

Next Post

May 25, 2018 A Brief Zen Buddhist Catechism: A First Draft

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What fruit of the Spirit is described as "patience" or "longsuffering"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Anger Patience Pride Apathy