Scales ad infinitum

Yutang Lin

Gradually looking down from beyond Milky Way,
Magnifying ever tinier particle within a single leaf,
Harmonize broad and narrow to remove prejudices,
From heaven down to quark there is no trace of self.

Comments:

My brother forwarded a webpage from the website of his alma mater. It presents a special technological feast that shows successively, at the rate of powers of ten, views looking down ever higher into space from above a leaf at the top of an oak tree, or magnifying ever tinier particles inside the leaf. It goes as far above as reaching beyond the Milky Way, and as deep within as arriving at the realm of quarks. Having gone through this sequence of forty layers of ever magnifying views one could not help but to comprehend intuitively the meaning of "no self." We are accustomed to our normal physical senses and views without a keen awareness of our being limited by them. If one could comprehend the fact that views of varying scopes ad infinitum are originally in harmonious oneness, then one would transcend the ordinary views stemming from the assumption of a self, and reach the truth with certainty that there is no self that one could hold onto.

Written in Chinese and translated on August 27, 2003
El Cerrito, California

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