Visualizing Before Touching the Earth

You can't be by yourself. You have to inter-be with everything else.

So before touching the Earth before the Buddha, you have to visualize that you are empty of a separate self, and also that the Buddha is empty of a self. The one who bows and the one who is bowed to are both by nature empty.

Before you bow, you say something like this: "Dear Buddha, I am bowing to you, but I know deeply that I am empty and you are also empty, because you are in me and I am in you. When I am touching the Earth before you, it may look ridiculous. But looking deeply, I see that I bow like this in order to touch you in me, and so that you can touch me in you also.

Suppose you build a hall made of mirrors, and then you enter holding a candle. Looking into a mirror you see you and the candle, and when you turn around you see that each mirror reflects you and the candle in the mirror too. You just need to look into one mirror to see all the reflections of you and the candle. Countless yous and countless candles are reflected in just one mirror.

We all Carry Buddhas Within:
The smallest atom can contain (James: and I would argue does contain) the whole cosmos.
You know the human body is made of cells, and now science has declared that cloning is possible. From one cell they can duplicate the whole body. How is it possible? Because one cell contains the totality of the genetic heritage of that person. If not, how could we, from one cell, bring the whole body into full manifestation? So current science has proved not only in theory but in practice that, in the one you touch the all.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

The Power of Visualization.
From talks given June 11 and June 14, 2004
The Feet of the Buddha Retreat, Plum Village

*sigh* Interbeing.

I bow to the Buddha within you, as I bow to the you in me and the me in you.

-Peace to us all-