Nuciferine
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We Buddhists are left wondering why centuries have passed without anyone
wondering just what qualities the blue lotus possessed that it should have
been selected to represent such an important feature: the wide open eyes of
the Awakened One.
Scholars have long noted the peculiar and ubiquitous presence of the blue
lotus in Egyptian art. And everywhere that it appears in tomb or temple it
is a potent and benevolent symbol: a face is gently pressed against the
flower to inhale its pollen or to savor its scent; a goblet of wine receives
an infusion of crushed lotus flowers, the better somehow to enjoy
Egyptian hieroglyph depicting rebirth of the spirit from the center of a
blue lotus. the drink; bouquets are offered to pharaohs just as pharaohs
offer them to other gods, reverently and with the certain knowledge that
these flowers, rather than jewels, are fit offerings to divinity; a newborn
Sun god emerges from a huge blue lotus which floats on the surface of the
Nun, the pre-primordial Waters of infinite space and infinite time from
which the Universe was born.
Scholars considered the lotus and concluded that as the Easter lily
symbolized the Resurrection, and Poinsettia the Nativity, and a variety of
plants represented sacred persons, qualities, or events, the blue lotus
merely symbolized well-being and long life to the ancient Egyptians,
possibly even the act of creation itself. And that was all there was to it.
And the Buddha's eyes? Scholars looked at modern Indians and found the idea
absurd. Blue was dismissed as a misreading of the word "clear" which simply
indicated that his eyes were not bloodshot or jaundiced or, more abstractly,
that they were capable of great, celestial
Looking into the Universe we see nothing but other galaxies in a vast void
of space. The ancients would not have been able to discriminate stars from
galaxies since they all look like points of light to the naked eye, yet
myths and ancient art, many involving the blue lotus, tell us they had a
knowledge of infinite space and infinite time - a knowledge that modern
cosmologists are still grappling to understand.
discernment. Often the scriptural line was considered another fanciful
exaggeration of the Thirty-Two Marks of a Superman. Usually, however, racial
and ethnic prejudices were invoked, either to validate the traditional image
of an Asian Buddha or to support Teutonic requirements for an acceptable
deity, one that bore a swastika on its chest and was the founder of the
Aryan Path. Peacemakers challenged all disputes, finding the Buddha's eye
color absolutely irrelevant. Nobody wondered about the blue lotus itself.
The flower's intrinsic nature was ignored.
But there was indeed a cryptic message in that choice of blue referents, and
it was only recently that anyone tried to decipher it.
Scientists at the University of Manchester, England, asked the question that
we should have been asking all along: What was there about the blue lotus
that made it so noteworthy?
They tested living samples of the flower and then compared these results to
flowers that had been removed from ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. The results
indicated that the flower's properties were identical: the living blue lotus
was the same flower that the ancients had revered; and the chemical
properties of that flower were those of such popular remedies as ginseng and
gingo biloba and that famous blue pill, Viagra.
Nuciferine, a constituent of the Blue Lotus, is now known to have
vasodilaing, hypotensive, and anti-arrhythmic properties.
We know today that the blue lotus contains nuciferine, a hypnotic compound
known to relax smooth muscle tissue and to have vasodilating, hypotensive,
and anti-arrhythmic properties. When the plants' crushed seeds or
concentrates are mixed with wine, a powerful sexual stimulant is produced.
More than just the "feel good" drug of the New Kingdom, the blue lotus would
have been the drug of choice for treating migraine headaches, Alzheimer's
disease, heart conditions, and a variety of sexual maladies that were also
alleviated by improved blood flow. Especially considering the diseases and
parasitic infestations that afflicted all our ancestors, and are still with
us today, this versatile plant would truly have been a godsend. Yet by
inserting our foolish prejudice into the interpretation of scripture and art
we deprived ourselves of centuries of benefit.
A painted carving found in the corridor of Tutankhamun's tomb shows the head
of a young boy in a representation of the infant sun god, Nefertem, arising
from the blue lotus which, itself, grew out of the primordial ocean.
Prejudice blinds and stultifies. It was never a question of lacking the
resources for investigation. We wouldn't have had to use mass spectroscopy
or any other sophisticated equipment to discover the properties of the blue
lotus. We could simply have gathered the flowers, sniffed, ingested, or
concentrated their essence and, following the instructions illustrated on
temple walls, mixed the concentrate with wine. The first person to do this
would likely have solved the mystery.
We now realize that the blue lotus possessed such extraordinary abilities
that its qualities became legendary; and word of its cultural significance
spread across vast continents, lending importance to other lotus species
that did not possess the blue lotus' chemical constituents..
The art and folklore of India and the rest of Asia do not speak of blue
lotuses, but they do speak of creation myths unusually similar to those of
ancient Egypt. For example, in ancient India, the Hiranya Garbha Gayatri was
chanted in devotion to the Heavenly Lotus, the egg or womb of gold, from
which Brahma the infinite source of time, space, and causation emerges:
Om Premathmaanaya Vidmahe
Hiranya Garbhaaya Dheemahi
Thannah Sathya Prachodayaath
In China and other parts of East Asia, where we find native pink and white
lotus varieties in much Buddhist artwork; we find that just like the
Egyptian's infant sun god, a Buddha, a Bodhisattva, or another celestial
deity sits or stands upon an open flower as if the flower itself were giving
birth to a great Cosmic Principle.
Ancient creation myths do, however, speak of the blue lotus, and it is these
myths that were evidently known to Aryans long before Cleopatra or
Alexander, in the distant lands of India where the flower did not grow.
We know that there was trade between Europe and China in antiquity. Chinese
artifacts have been found deep in the ruins of Troy. And, as Claude Björk,
an Archeologist at Stockholm University, asserts, the presence in Europe of
ancient materials, "especially of obsidian, jade, bronze and silk" indicates
that there was indeed contact between West and East as long ago as 2000 BC.
The blonde mummies of Urumchi in the Takla Makan also show that Europeans
were traveling to ancient China during this period and that they carried
European textiles, wheat and other commodities with them. Knowledge of the
blue lotus' reputation could easily have spread globally for centuries
before the Silk Road was to become the world's first major conduit for
commerce between East and West.
The irony is that the knowledge of the plant's salutary qualities was there
'right in front of our eyes' for centuries; yet we ignored it. Most of us
embraced modern pharmacology and laughed condescendingly at Folk Medicine's
herbal remedies, remedies which constituted our entire pharmacopoeia less
than a century ago. Surely, we thought, anything we needed we could invent.
For centuries there was a need for Viagra and other blood-vessel dilators,
but that need went unfulfilled. Only now, when we have finally raised those
Bamboo and Iron Curtains that had divided whole continents for more than
half a century, have we discovered the evidence of international commerce
that existed five thousand years ago. We also begin to understand that
medical knowledge was more advanced than we ever imagined.
Though we do not usually trust the intuitions of our distant ancestors,
there are times when their insights astonish us. It is, for example,
remarkable to see how modern physicists' theories of the origins of the
universe are reflected in the symbols of creation myths passed down through
generations for thousands of years. Many physicists have pondered the shape
of the early universe. Mathematical models of possible energy-density and
space-time structures in many ways remind us of the manner in which a flower
opens its petals.
There are countless examples of our ancestors' insights: skeletal remains
from 5000 BC demonstrate knowledge of brain surgery and use of antibiotics
as long ago as 4500 BC; birch bark was also used to preserve food during
this time because of its anti-microbial properties and, by 3300 BC, European
travelers were chewing it and carrying it along with other antibiotics in
medical kits. There is also evidence from the discovery of the Tyrolean
Iceman who lived during this time that acupuncture may have originated in
Europe and may have been carried to Asia by travelers. Genetic Engineering
may have begun with Neolithic farmers who successfully modified and
cultivated maize. Even the computer has ancient origins. The "Antikythera
mechanism" was found in a shipwreck dated to 100 BC: it was made from
epicyclic and differential gears, and included dials and inscriptions for
operating instructions.
Often we fail to look at our ancestors with sufficient awe and gratitude for
the fortitude and wisdom that brought us to the place we are today. Usually,
we prefer to imagine that we are superior to our ancestors. We disguise our
condemnation of religious or cultural practices that are alien to our own by
calling them remnants of a barbaric past. We assume that the cruelties of
the Roman Coliseum or the Spanish Inquisition are representative of a
primitive stage from which we have greatly evolved. We boast about the
technological sophistication of the 20th century: nuclear energy, moon
visits, the Internet; but we blind ourselves to the false pride and
religious prejudice that have also, in that same century, brought us the
Holocaust, the Rape of Nanjing, the killing fields of Cambodia, and other
atrocities of such scale and variety that no human heart can bear to
describe or enumerate them.
Today we suffer needlessly at the hands of technology, not because of
technology, but because of our relationship to it. Just as we ignored the
actual nature of the lotus and the uses to which it was put, substituting
facile opinion for serious investigation, we worship technological
innovations using new devices without considering the purpose and quality of
their use. That we are able to accomplish a task becomes a sufficient reason
to perform it, and we value technology for technology's sake alone. We have
computers, cell phones, beepers, televisions with hundreds of channels but
what about the quality of those communications? Our email is littered with
junk advertisements, idiotic 'chain' letters, and pornography. Our phones
ring incessantly with solicitations. Our bank account dwindles as we
purchase a vast array of gadgets that promise to make our lives better. But
they don't fulfill that promise. We are neither better nor happier human
beings for all the jingles, beeps and chirps. We are stressed by our fast
pace of life, tired from lack of sleep, and angry because we are denied the
opportunity for "peace and quiet" - the solitude we all require.
Our attitude toward life has become trivialized. Recognizable images of
human life are eliminated from art; and along with this omission, human
values dissapear. We produce prettier computers but no Davids or Sistine
ceilings. As our poetry increases in abstract prolixity, it declines in
simple emotional expression.
Yet we still recognize the Human Spirit when we encounter it in the remnants
of our past. When we read the works of Plato or see ancient Greek statues we
are touched; and when we see the artistic depth and beauty of the Lascaux
cave art from civilizations that existed thousands of years before the Ice
Age, we are more than touched. We are astonished.
Twenty-five hundred years ago the Buddha taught that what is Real is
inherently unchanging and is therefore outside of time. The art portrayed by
the ancients of Lascaux seems to radiate that timeless quality about which
the Buddha preached. Could we, today, improve upon these ancient artists'
works?
All that makes us human continues; yet, while we are the technological
superiors of the ancients, we are in no way their superiors in poetry,
drama, art, music, and philosophy, or in any spiritual expression. And we
are not their superiors in decency and integrity.
Zen requires that we maintain our sense of awe and wonder, that pure
curiosity about the things we see and experience, that search for meaning
and significance that is so apparent in the works of ancient man. We cannot
allow technology to dull our awe and jade our curiosity about the meaning of
life. We cannot look upon our ancient past as if it were our gestational
period, a pre-sentient phase of existence. We need to be aware always of the
spirit of inquiry. If we had brought scientific integrity to the images we
saw in Egyptian tombs and to the question of why the blue lotus was used to
describe the Buddha's eyes, we might have learned that not only did this
flower symbolize long life, good health, and even sexual pleasure, it
actually provided these benefits.
"Enter the Path! There spring the healing streams
Quenching all thirsts! There bloom the immortal flowers
Carpeting all the way with Joy! There throng
Swiftest and sweetest hours."
The Buddha, from Sir Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia
We don't know which "immortal flowers" the Buddha was referring to, but if
it was the blue lotus, we have allowed our modern arrogance to obscure an
important clue.
Guan Yin (Kannon) gazing upon a patch of pink lotus blossoms. The pink lotus
is ubiquitous in Asian art and usually depicted with a celestial saviour, an
archetypal symbol of the infinite and eternal. Illustration courtesy of Xin
Dé Shakya, of Hong Fa temple, Shen Zhen, China.
C
part 3
JAPAN ECHO Vol. 26, No. 4, August 1999
The Kômeitô: A Virus Infecting the Body Politic
ENDÔ Kôichi
THE PROMISE OF "EARTHLY BENEFITS"
Ôgi Chikage, a Liberal Party upper house member who
worked with Kômei members back when she belonged
to the now defunct New Frontier Party, recalls that her
Kômei colleagues "were like the cormorants used for
fishing. Someone was pulling their strings; they never
expressed their own opinions. They had a tendency to skirt
issues having to do with the state as a whole or defense,
but when it came to issues of daily life, like welfare or
the consumption tax, they would haggle over the details.
In that sense you couldn't help feeling that they were
engaging in a rather pandering form of politics."
What Ôgi aptly calls "a pandering form of politics" is
linked directly to the essence of the Sôka Gakkai.
"Protecting the weak" sounds fine, but such Kômeitô
policies as shopping vouchers, ¥2 trillion in tax cuts,
enhanced child allowances, and free medical services
for infants are, frankly, just indiscriminate handouts. But
from the Sôka Gakkai's point of view they represent
the "earthly benefits" it promises believers. The Kômeitô is a
political machine designed to deliver the earthly
benefits that are at the core of the Sôka Gakkai's doctrine.
Traditionally, Japanese Buddhism has emphasized
succor, so there is nothing strange about a Buddhist
organization preaching the pursuit of earthly benefits.
What decisively divides the Sôka Gakkai from other
Buddhist groups is its formation of a political party to
realize earthly benefits through policies aimed at
redistributing national wealth to the socially disadvantaged
(who make up the bulk of the group's membership).
Helping the disadvantaged is an important part of
politics, and parties that advocate doing so deserve praise. The
problem is the identification of the Kômeitô's political
achievements with the Sôka Gakkai's religious merits.