In May 2025, I attended two exhibitions with different religious content. First, I visited the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana on the way to an event that afternoon. Among various displays there was a series of large mandalas, one with a thousand Buddhas surrounding the central, larger Buddha (called Vairocana Buddha or Sarvavid or "all-knowing" Buddha) reflected in four images in four cardinal directions. I was wondering about its title and the tiny squares of multiple Buddhas around the central image did not seem that numerous so I actually counted them a. Indeed - one thousand. I wondered what is better, to see a thousand Buddhas in heavens, arranged in perfect symmetry, or to proclaim one, true, invisible, omnipresent God?
A Mandala of a Thousand Buddhas
Seated on the lotus throne of wisdom,
surrounded by compassionate insights of four other Buddhas
of four cardinal directions, the Thousand-Buddhas' Buddha
smiles serenely. He knows. The multicolored aureoles,
each one encompassing another, glow with cosmic perfection.
This, and all other Buddhas of this Thousand-Buddha
Heaven are tranquil. They now what is to be known.
They are peaceful. They rest in the brightness
of wisdom, the dazzling light of compassion.
Are all Thousand Buddhas the same?
Do they smile the same smile? now the same truth?
How would I now? But which one is right for me?
Which one will protect me, will shine a light on my path.
I do not know. I shake my head and walk home
after counting more than thousand and one Buddhas,
not knowing which one is truly mine.
(C) Maja Trochimczyk, May 2025
The mandalas were crowded and full of spiritual presence - so many enlightened beings in each tiniest unit of space... An orderly cosmos of perfection, compassion, wisdom, and goodness...
Then, a week later, I went to the Reagan Presidential library to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit and was not disappointed. It was the second such exhibition that I visited - the first one was in San Diego in 2008 when I wrote the poem below. The ancient, sacred texts were fragmented, and yet revealed over two thousand years of perfection, compassion, wisdom and goodness. It was so moving to see these tiny fragments carrying the writings, the testimony over generations!
Dead Sea Alive
On seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition
at San Diego’s Balboa Park, January 4, 2008
An archipelago of broken words
a mosaic of ill-fitting pieces
Torn ribbons with angelic voices
coded by crooked signs
Scholars decipher, assemble patterns
the dust of ages obscures the meaning
Here – “Blow your trumpets,
slay the guilty”
There – “He heals the badly wounded,
makes the dead live”
I see “YHWH” – four letters in an ancient script
I hear – “Halleluiah!”
After two thousand years,
two hundred days and two hours
I offer a sacrifice
of my mind to the eternal presence
The angels are here with us
hovering on iridescent wings
Just above red boxes with fire blankets
just beyond a row of glass screens
With miniature shreds
of holiness inside
© 2008 by Maja Trochimczyk, Quill and Parchment, Dec. 2009
At home, I used to have several volumes about Dead Sea Scrolls, with the stories of the Essenes, and fragmented transcripts of what was found there - the Gospel of Thomas, The Revelation, the Prophets... At that time, the Essenes, members of a mysterious hermit sect, interpreted as either a splinter of Judaism, or forerunners of early Christianity, were assumed to be among its authors. They lived in Qumran in the hills near the Dead Sea - the manuscripts were found, sealed in clay jars in its caves. In this interpretation, the Dead Sea Scrolls were connected to another set of ancient pre-Christian manuscripts - the Nag Hammadi library of gnostic texts, presenting a different vision of the spiritual world than traditional Christianity and Judaism.
By 2025, the official story treats the Essenes as a apocryphal wish of Christians, while fully attributing all Dead Sea Scrolls to the history of Judaism. These manuscripts are now assumed to have been written between 3rd century B.C. and 1st century C.E. Initially, many pastor, priests and Christians were among scholars expertly and painstakingly deciphering, identifying and translating the scrolls. By now, they ae mostly thought to be Jewish. I'm not Jewish, yet I love them! The whole of the Prophet Isaiah! Intact! The whole set of ten commandments! Undamaged! These are the most ancient written documents confirming the reality of both Judaism and Christianity.
The display at the Reagan library showed only eight fragments, without full translations, and I' not write about them all here. The tiny fragments were accompanied with larger photographs and explanatory notes. They will be shown for three months and return to the darkness of the archives for at east five years - to reduce damage by light. Instead, here's my Dead Sea Scrolls poem, written "in my head" while I was driving back from my poetry feature in Tucson, Arizona. Hence the desert names and imagery... how appropriate for the manuscripts preserved in another desert...
Dead Sea Scrolls in Simi Valley
Harquahala, Salome, and Gold Nugget Drive
crisscross the desert where dust devils slowly swirl
between the arms of a Seguro cactus, raised up
in supplication for rain, just a tad of water
from the burning sandy inferno of the sky.
Charcoal brown rocky hills surround the arid plain
like the white sandstone of the Dead Sea.
The Arizona desert seems to become the bottom
of the ocean with bunches of ocotillo cactus
pretending to be kelp. Only the fish are missing.
The pattern is disturbed by the abundance
of celadon seafoam palo verde trees –
the delicate lace of leaves trembling in the breeze.
Fear. Jesus died. Disciples scattered. Thomas to India.
Joseph of Arimathea to the misty isle of the Britons.
Who remained in the drying Dead Sea valley
Who climbed sandstone slopes? Who filed clay jars
with manuscripts on papyrus and parchment
densely covered with ink and rolled in clean white
linen for safety, to survive in dry desert air.
Hot air of a miracle – the survival of our culture.
When the Bedouin goatherd guarding his flock
threw a stone into a cave half-way up the slope,
the jar shattered echoing through the darkness
of the cave and through the millennia.
The monumental discovery. The heart of the West.
Dead Sea Scrolls when deciphered – moved back the clock
of our civilization by a thousand years. The book of Isaiah.
The Gospel of Thomas. Ten Commandments. The wisdom
of centuries waited for its time in dark, dry caves.
(c) Maja Trochimczyk, May 2025
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The largest of the scrolls survived in over 400 tiny fragments, it is now called 4Q418 and contains wisdom teachings of a "guru" imparting spiritual knowledge on his disciples - "Open the spring of your lips to bless the holy ones, and yo, praise in the eternal spring" - this sounds very "new-age-y" for those we versed in the Upanishads and the "spiritual" revelations... The "YHWH" name does not appear there, so was it truly related to Judaism, or maybe gnostic Christianity, or maybe some other "mystery" religion of secret knowledge? Its deciphering is only possible thanks to the advancement in computer science... As we are all "holy ones" and all come from the one eternal spring of life" - is it not an admonition for all humanity? Blessing is a much more fruitful activity than cursing - after all this is why I do not tolerate the "f" words in any poems I write or publish...
Another interesting fragment is from the Book of War - the 40-year struggle between Sons of light and Sons of Darkness - an Apocalypsis, if you will ... Are we not embroiled in this ancient battle right now? The quote highlighted at the exhibition stated "His exalted greatness shall shine eternally to the peace, blessing, gory, joy, and long life of a the Sons of light" Now, who is "He" in this text? YHWH? Christ? Messiah? This manuscript did not become an element in either set of the Hoy Scriptures, neither of Judaism nor of Christianity. Fascinating!
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So far, my discussion of the content of the Dead Sea Scrolls was in dualistic terms of either - or ... But I became completely enchanted at a side room of the exhibition where the oldest surviving manuscript of the Ten Commandments was displayed. Written on two sheets of leather, it was found in Cave 4 at Qumran. Not the original - that one already returned to the lightless archives... But each commandment could be highlighted on the screen and then read in English translation. The sound of the ceremonial shofar added to the solemnity of the occasion - facing and examining the timeless rules written for us, so we are forever blessed in our peaceful lives. From this exhibit, I only too home one haiku, published in the California Quarterly 51, no. 2.
Dead Sea Scrolls unfurl
insights for three millennia -
"you shall,,, you shall not..."
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Some of these ancient rules for good living contain promises, as if their fulfillment was too difficult without an extra dose of sugar...
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"Honor your father and your mother, as your lord God has commanded you, that you may long endure and that you may fare well in the land that the lord your God is assigning to you"
Other commandments are terse, and self-evident "you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal..." There is no reward written in here, just the bare order - NOT! The same exact rues are found in Buddhism, they are truly universal!
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