Hua-yan Buddhism derived its name from the Hua-yan Sutra,
translated as “The Flower Ornament Scripture” or as
“The Flowery
Splendor Scripture.” This extensive Buddhist text gives a very
“flowery” description of the various stages of
enlightenment; it also
expounds the correct worldview, the correct ethical conduct, among
other things. It probably was not composed by a single author, but was
a compilation of various works circulating in India and its neighboring
regions around the first and the second centuries AD. As far as we know
no Indian Buddhist school was ever founded on the basis of this
scripture.
The Hua-yan School, like its contemporary
Tian-tai School, is indisputably a Chinese Buddhist school. Wing-tsit
Chan says that it “represents the highest development of Chinese
Buddhist thought.” The founder of the Hua-yan School was a Chinese monk
named Du-shun (557-640). Though Hua-yan’s major sutra came from abroad,
Du-shun established Hua-yan Buddhism by introducing new terminology to
replace some key Indian notions. He introduced the term “li”
(principle) to stand for the ultimate realm of reality. This notion
would prove to be one of the most important in Chinese philosophy.
Du-shun used “shi” (things or events) to  replace
the term “form” in traditional Buddhist texts. This substitution
manifests a more intense interest in the affairs of the phenomenal
world. With this substitution, Hua-yan’s first patriarch took a subtle
step away from the strong negation of the phenomenal world manifested
in the Hua-yan Sutra. Du-shun
also introduced the theory of the non-interference (or non-obstruction)
of principle and things. Future patriarchs of the Hua-yan School would
further develop his ingenious idea. [ICP, 248]
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The Huayan Sutra
Indra’s
Net
The jeweled net of
Sakra is also called Indra’s Net, and is made up of jewels. The
jewels
are shiny and reflect each other successively, their images permeating
each
other over and over. In a single jewel they all appear at the
same time,
and this can be seen in each and every jewel. There is really no
coming
or going.
Now if we turn to
the
southwest direction and pick up
one of the jewels to examine it, we will see that this one jewel can
immediately reflect the images of all of the other jewels. Each
of the
other jewels will do the same. Each jewel will simultaneously
reflect the
images of all the jewels in this manner, as will all of the other
jewels. The images are repeated and multiplied in each other in a manner that
is
unbounded. Within the boundaries of a single jewel are contained
the
unbounded repetition and profusion of the images of all the
jewels. The
reflections are exceedingly clear and are completely unhindered.
If you sit in one
jewel, you will at that instant be
sitting repeatedly in all of the other jewels in all directions. Why is
this? It is because one jewel contains all the other
jewels. Since
all the jewels are contained in this one jewel, you are sitting at that
moment
in all the jewels. The converse that all are in one follows the
same line
of reasoning. Through one jewel you enter all jewels without
having to
leave that one jewel, and in all jewels you enter one jewel without
having to
rise from your seat in the one jewel. [SCT, 473]
- In her discussion of the Huayan Sutra (quoted above), JeeLoo Liu notes that the text manifests a “strong negation of the phenomenal world.” Do you think that the parable of Indra’s Net represents a negation or an affirmation of the phenomenal world?
- How might Du Shun’s new terminology of li (“principle,” referring to the ultimate realm of reality) and shi
(“thing” or “event,” referring to
the realm of forms or “phenomena”) be used to
interpret the parable?
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Huayan Metaphysics
The Hua-yan Sutra
denies that the phenomenal world really exists. The phenomenal world
means the world we, as human beings, presently experience. In the Hua-yan Sutra,
this world is likened to dream, illusion, phantom, echo, the magician’s
conjuring, and the reflection in the mirror. Everything we perceive
around us is also like a reflection or an illusion. As reflections,
objects “have no location” and “no substantial nature.” As illusions,
objects do not have a real beginning or end, nor do they have a
definite origin or a final exit. In one synopsis, the Sutra says that all things “have no true reality.” [ICP, 250]
.
For example, the second patriarch Zhi-yan says:
Since
there is no separate objective realm outside of mind, we say “only
mind.” If it operates harmoniously, it is called nirvana; therefore the
[Sutra] says, “Mind makes the Buddhas.” If it operates perversely, it is birth-and-death; therefore the [Sutra] says, “The triple world is illusory—it is only made by one mind.”
The third patriarch Fa-zang also says:
[W]hatever there is in the world
is only the creation of one mind; outside of mind there is not a single
thing that can be apprehended....It means that all discriminations come
only from one’s own mind. There has never been any environment outside
the mind which could be an object of mind.
[ICP, 252] |
.
Hence,
we could perhaps say that Hua-yan Buddhism is based on an
anti-realistic attitude toward this mundane world. This feature of
subjective idealism and anti-realism seems to have been overlooked by
many Hua-yan commentators....
...[On the other hand,] Cook argues that for the Hua-yan School,
“the emptiness doctrine should not be understood as a naive
rejection
of the material world as pure illusion; it indeed recognizes the
existence of the natural world but denies that it has any duration or
independent being. In fact, being is rejected in favor of a constant,
never-fully-completed becoming.” Under this interpretation, the
world
we live in is an organic whole constantly evolving and transforming.
What is denied is simply the self-subsistence of individual entities,
not the whole system. Did Fa-zang revolutionize Hua-yan Buddhism so
much as to turn its spirit of idealism into realism? Let us turn to
Fa-zang’s view in particular. [ICP, 253]
.
| Fa-zang builds up from the
interpenetration of multiple worlds to expound his view of the
interconnectedness of multiple things within each world. He uses the
gold lion example to illustrate that the whole phenomenal world, the
Realm of Things, is like one single object, each part of which is
inseparable from the other parts. Without any of the multiple parts of
the lion, the whole lion cannot exist; without the whole lion, no part
of the lion could possibly exist. By the same token, with any single
thing lacking in the phenomenal world, the whole world would not exist;
without the whole world, no single thing can exist. There is thus
mutual entailment between the whole and its parts. This kind of view is
now considered a form of holism, the thesis that any single item within
a particular system is part of the whole system and cannot be
considered independently of the whole. [ICP, 258]
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Even though Hua-yan Buddhism views all
objects and events in the whole universe as mutually causally dependent
and as ontologically interconnected, it does not posit a real causal
network among them. To assume that there are any real causal
connections among things is to assume that causality itself is real and
that causal agents are real. Both claims are denied by Hua-yan
philosophers. The only real causal agent should be the Mind only, which
produces multiple minds, which in turn through their delusions create
multiple things. Even though from our perception there are primary and
subsidiary causes that can be discerned in each effect, ultimately both
causes and effects are only “epiphenomena” superimposed by the real
cause—the Mind. [ICP, 261]
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Treatise
on the
Golden Lion
Fa-tsang
(643-712)
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2.
Distinguishing Matter and Emptiness
It means that the character [phenomenon] of the
lion
is unreal [i.e. empty]; there is only real gold. The lion is not
existent,
but the substance of the gold is not nonexistent. Therefore they are
[???separately???] called matter [form/phenomenon] and Emptiness.
Furthermore, Emptiness has no character of its own; it shows itself by
means of matter [form/phenomena]. This does not obstruct its illusory
existence. Therefore they are [???separately???] called matter and
Emptiness. [Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 409.] |
- What is the relationship between Emptiness and
matter/form/phenomena?
- How is this relationship connected to Du Shun’s discussion of li (principle) and shi (phenomena)?
- How is this related to Nagarjuna’s
discussion of Emptiness (Sunyata)?
- How is this “cosmology” similar to the one
that is presented in the Daodejing? How does it differ?
- So in the end, is Huayan a “world-affirming” or a “world-denying” tradition?
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