FA TSANG: three thought experiments on the infinite nature of the Matrix of Mystery
Fa-tsang (643-712) was a great teacher, and a friend of the great questioner empress. She often asked about infinity, and he wanted to inspire her with thought experiments, much as modern science, to give her experiences. Three are famous, one of which he physically actualized! When the empress asked about the vast infinity of the “Matrix of Mystery,” he was at a loss. But one day, she wore a fabulous pearl necklace, and immediately he recalled and told her about the “Jewel Net of Indra”; a precursor to holograms and fractals. When she asked a question about the omnipresence of the matrix, he asked her to wait a few days. He had built a hall of mirrors to illustrate the simultaneous arisal of the One in each and all. Another day, she asked a deep question about reality and appearance. Not content with his knowledge, he walked around for days, and then passed a golden lion on the palace grounds. Immediately knew how to teach her inter-penetration through the “10 secrets of the golden lion.”
The jewel net is a metaphor For Interbeing.. I AM INCLUDING IT LATER AS PART OF THE GOLDEN LION… ON TURNING 5…
The hall of mirrors: a metaphor for simultaneity… I AM INCLUDING IT LATER AS PART OF TURNING 6…
The gold lion: a metaphor revealing the mysteries of the real continuous with appearance.
Fatsang wanted to explain to the Empress about reality and appearances. The principles of simultaneity, interpenetration, omnipresence and so on are difficult to explain. But one day Fa Tsang has another aha: he sees a golden lion statue—it was just lion around there, and he realized that the lion had a golden lioning: that there was the gold, the gold lining. Fa Tsang came up with this image of the gold and lion as a metaphor for reality and appearances.
Fa Tsang wasn’t happy just with the lion. So here’s where the thing gets really kind of fabulous. The golden lion has a strange infinite feature. The lion form has an infinite 
number of hairs, and at the end of each of the infinite number of hairs there is a golden lion form, with an infinite number of hairs. And so on. The fabulous images of the Mandelbrot set (see above) so actualizes this image of the golden lion I was startled when I first saw it. At the same time, the essential nature of the entire lion, all the lions, and their infinite parts was—Go(l)d.
In 1970, my teacher Anthony was in Columbus, Ohio, he expounded on Fa Tsang to explain a passage at the end of The Wisdom of the Overself: “when we understand that the Real is continuous with its appearance… the desire to desert the world deserts us.”
HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM ANTHONY’S TALK:
Fa Tsang expounded ten principles of interpenetration, simultaneous presence, and omni-connectedness of the Matrix of Mystery. Read on to explore a few of them: