@NoaidiX where in the sutras is the Buddha compared metaphorically to a mirror?
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
I've not seen the Buddha himself compared metaphorically to a mirror, but his wisdom surely is (e.g., [mahā-]ādarśana-jñāna, [大]圓鏡智) and this wisdom is within the capacity of all beings to uncover in themselves.
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Replying to @NoaidiX @ericlinuskaplan
The mirror is more commonly invoked as a metaphor for insubstantiality (i.e., the images reflected in a mirror are not real) such as in the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa/Sūtra and Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, but also to depict a mind capable of clearly reflecting phenomena as they are.
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Replying to @NoaidiX
cool. I recalled that the Buddha himself was compared to a mirror -- that if you talk to him you get what is actually going on with you reflected back at you. No?
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan @NoaidiX
Obviously much later, but there's a chapter of the Shōbōgenzō that devoted to mirror metaphors. Zhuangzi also claims that the mind of the sage is like a mirror, so it wouldn't surprise me if early Chinese Buddhists applied this directly to the Buddha.
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Dōgen's Kokyō (古鏡), Dongshan Liangjie's Song of the Jewel Mirror Samādhi (寶鏡三昧歌) and others use the mirror metaphor to convey positive qualities of *mind*|心 or *nature*|性, as does Huineng's Platform Sūtra—all distinctly Zen/Chan—but *Buddha*=mirror, I haven't seen (yet).
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