<1999/August/6~19, held my private mandala exhibition at the above "Toga village Public Mandala Park"     In any event, the Mahayana movement spurred a public, poetic imagination of Eternity, characterized as a consciousness or awareness of time and space. The countless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were, by degrees, arranged into a spiritual geography aligned to the compass.     Much of the literature that describes these myriad Buddhas originated in areas peripheral to or adjacent to ancient India (the cult of Amitabha, for example, probably arose in what is today modern Iran: a country, not insignificantly, that lies to the west of India.) Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism, is a vast collection of various efforts that were developed in far-flung locales. Considering that the dissemination of information faced formidable barriers in ancient times, it can seem amazing that a cult like that of Amitabha could have been broadcast as widely and as quickly as it was.     One reason for this success may be that the story struck a resonant chord in audiences. Furthermore, rather unlike us moderns who may emphasize a distance-time consciousness, ancient audiences emphasized a time-distance consciousness. Their imaginations, unencumbered by Cartesian restraints, were free to embrace concepts of "everything" and "everywhere." It was probably easier to imagine eternity then than it is today.