Home

Buddhist Philosophy

Avatamsaka - Hua-yen

"Avatamsaka” (Flower Wreath) is the name for both the scriptural cycle and the philosophical current based on this literature. The sutra cycle probably dates from the 2nd or 3rd century CE. It mostly deals with the mystical teachings concerning Maha-Vairocana-Buddha, i.e. the “Cosmic Buddha”. As scriptural source we know mainly the Buddha-Avatamsaka-Sutra (Discourse on the Buddha Flower Wreath), a collection of texts of which most of the Sanskrit originals have been lost. Still extend are:

Gandavyuha-sutra:

The story of the young man Sudhana who goes on a quest for the absolute (dharmadhatu). Determined to find it he becomes the student of 51 (or 53?) teachers (kalyana mitra, lit. “good friends”) all of a distinguished character: sages, kings, men, fools, women (even a prostitute), gods, bodhisattvas, etc. After many kalpa’s of searching throughout an innumerable number of universes, he ends up with Manjusri Bodhisattva, the Supreme Wisdom of Buddhahood. Manjusri shows him to a place where “the” Wisdom can be found: a tower high upon a steep mountain. After a journey full of dangers Sudhana arrives at the tower: it is empty!

Also the Dhasabhumika-sutra (Sutra on the Ten Stages) is traditionally counted among the Avatamsaka texts.

In India there doesn’t appear to have been a separate Avatamsaka school. The story of Sudhana is however also told in Divyavadana (preserved in the Sanskrit and Tibetan translations) and it is depicted on the Boro-Budur temple complex in Java. The entire Avatamsaka cycle is preserved in Tibetan and also in several translations in the Chinese Canon.

It is in China that the Avatamsaka doctrine will receive its factual philosophical systematization, in which the acquired teachings of both Madhyamaka and Yogacara are integrated in to one “holistic” system. The foundation for this is laid by Tu-shun (557-640) and Chih-yen (602-668). The actual systematization belongs however to Fa-tsang (643-712). His works include: Chin-shih-tzu-chang (Essay on the Golden Lion); I-hai pai-men (One Hundred propositions on the Ocean of Thought); Hua-yen ching chih-kuei (Essential themes of the Avatamsaka Sutra). For the final touch-up Ch’eng-kuan (738-838) was also important.

The main ideas of Avatamsaka-thought are found in the Hua-yen ching I-240:

The One is the Many.
The Many is the One.
In the word the meaning is to be found.
In the meaning the word is to be understood.
Non-being is Being. Being is Non-being.
Formlessness is Form. Form is Formlessness.
Non-being is Being. Being is Formlessness.

Avatamsaka philosophy wants to provide an affirming answer to Nagarjuna’s attitude of negation. It also manages to clarify some of the problems that had not or unsatisfactorily been answered within the Yogacara, e.g. the relationship between manas and alaya-vijnana (storehouse-consciousness). In this sense Hua-yen forms an organic whole of all essential elements of Mahayana Buddhism. In the Avatamsaka – and even more so in its Chinese form – the Hua-yen we will for the first time encounter a metaphysical approach, be it in a very subtle form. Up until then Buddhist philosophy had refused to venture along the path of metaphysics, e.g. by asking the question concerning the nature of the Absolute.

Hua-yen (maybe influence by Taoism?) dares to take the step to a “being outside of consciousness’ (li = noumenon) and in doing so breaks through the limitations of consciousness, by which it became possible to conceive of a worldview.

Identity and Totality

In their true nature all things are identical.

Starting from a syllogistic structure

If A equals X
And B equals X
Than A equals B

we can exchange the terms A and B for ‘dharma’s’ and X for sunyata (emptiness):

If dharma 1 = emptiness
And dharma 2 = emptiness
Than dharma 1 = dharma 2

Or, as Fa-tsang expressed it, exchanging the term dharma with the term “thing” or “phenomenon” (shih):

If shih 1 = k’ung (emptiness)
And shih 2 = k’ung

Than all things in their true nature, in their emptiness are equal to one another. Things only differ from one another through the relational context in which they find themselves.

In their unity “things” are identical. This identity leads towards a “totality” (the absolute, chen), the “suchness of beings” (Skt. Bhuta-tathata, Ch. Chen-ju). Seen from the point of view of the phenomenal it the “realm of phenonema” (dharmadhatu, fa-chieh). But seen from an Absolute point of view this is the “essence” or “suchness”, the ultimate principle that lies at the basis of all beings, the “element of elements” (dharmata, fa-hsing). Soteriologically this absolute reality is the source of enlightenment, the “womb of the tathagatas (tathagata-garbha, ju-lai tsang); all beings therefore have Buddha-nature.

Bhutatathata, dharmadhatu, dharmata, tathagata-garbha are various aspects of the inexpressible absolute. Also alaya-vijnana is none other than such an aspect. To the Hua-yen, alaya-vijnana is the “Great Ocean Mirror” (ta hai yin), in which the countless drama’s of the universe spontaneously and simultaneously reflects each other, in a harmonic play of mutual, multi-dimensional projections and interpenetrations.

R. Grousset (in Sur le Traces du Bouddha) describes this absolute as : “un absolu non plus supérieur aux phénomènes, mais entièrement inherent à eux…l’absolu en tant que processus même des choses.” (“An Absolute not superior to phenomena, but entirely inherent in them…the Absolute as the process of things themselves.”)

This leads us to a second remarkable point:

Interpenetration

Not only are “things” in their true nature identical to each other or do they form a “totality”, they are also present in one another. Each separate thing does not only reflect all other things but also reflects the Absolute in its totality. (cfr. Holographic model).

All things interpenetrate each other, contain each other:

All is in One – One is in All.
All things are present in Oneness,
Oneness is present in all things.
My ego-ness is present in the Absolute,
The Absolute is present in my ego-ness.
All beings are present in the Buddha,
The Buddha is present in all beings.
Nirvana is present in samsara,
Samsara is present in Nirvana.
The cosmos is present in each separate thing,
Each separate thing is present in the cosmos.

We have to be careful though not to lose sight of the 4th logical lemma!

In this context it is not inappropriate to quote Leibniz: “Infinitum continuum vel discretum proprie nec unum, nec totum, nec quantum est.” In other words, we should not quantify this interpenetration.

An expression such as: “All is Buddha, Buddha is All” is wrong in the sense that from this one could conclude that all beings are Buddha, or that “I am a Buddha”. This of course could never be the intention of the Hua-yen.

What we can conclude from this is that the totality of Buddhahood is present in each and every element of our personality (nama-rupa), i.e. the 5 skandha’s (aggregates). As within a hologram the total picture is present within each part of that picture, so it is that within each part of our mind (and body…) enlightenment is present. In this way we partake in the Buddha-Body that manifests itself in the three (or more…) Buddha-Bodies.

But only an enlightened one sees this enlightenment.

The total interpenetration of things makes that also contradictions are present. However these do not exclude each other. This is the doctrine of “non-hindrance” or “all-embracing”, also called the “total freedom of things in their true nature”.

“Here we find that both time and space have lost their meaning and power as we understand and experience them. Here is not merely a realm-embracing-realm ad infinitum, but a total change-over, a thorough liberation from all obstructions. Here is a perfect melting and merging of all realms, the all-in-one and the one-in-all, the dissolving of being and non-being, the convergence of Voidness and existence, the “simultaneous abrupt arising” and the “perfect mutual solution”. All these mysteries of Totality consist, however, in one basic principle; namely, all things of dependent-arising (pratitya-samutpada) are void.…

To stress the “ego-less” aspect of this great mystery of sunyata, we have Hinayana Buddhism; to stress the void-aspect of this mystery, we have Madhyamaka Buddhism; to stress the non-clinging, non-abiding aspect we have Zen; and to stress the non-obstructing and all-embracing aspect, we have Hua-yen.

…we have found that the Totality and Non-obstruction of Buddhahood are expressed in these terms:

That the universe can be infinitely vast or small depending on the scale of measurement, or the position from which a measurement is made.
That the “larger” universes include the “smaller” ones as a solar system contains its planets, or a planet contains its atoms. This system of higher realms embracing the lower ones is pictured in a structure extending ad infinitum in both directions to the infinitely large or the infinitely small. This is called in Hua-yen vocabulary the view of realms-embracing-realms.
That a “small” universe, (such as an atom) not only contains the infinite “lesser” universes within itself, but also contains the infinite “larger” universes (such as the solar system), thus establishing the genuine Totality of Non-obstruction.
That “time” has lost its meaning as merely a concept for measuring the flow of events in the past, present and future. It has now become an element of Totality which actualized the total interpenetration and containment of all events of past, present, and future in the eternal present.
Upon the grand stage of the infinite Dharmadhatu, countless various dramas of religion are being enacted in numerous dimensions of space/time throughout eternity.
(G.C. Chang, The Buddhist Teaching of Totality, 1971, p. 11-13)

Empress Wu Tse-T’ien (T’ang-dynasty, 684-705, first concubine of Emperor Kao-tsung) invited Fa-tsang to clarify to her the Hua-yen teachings of Totality and Interpenetration. The master adorned a hall of the palace with mirrors and in the center of the hall he placed a Buddha-image with a lamp beside it. The image reflected itself infinitely in all directions, the image was present everywhere. Then the master, standing in the center of the hall, held a small crystal ball in his hand. All of the mirror images where now captured in this one small ball.

Obviously these scenario is only a metaphor in which we should remind ourselves that it is only concerned with “images”, that in fact there is neither a Buddha-image nor a lamp, that the mirrors only reflect their own emptiness to each other, that there is no-one looking into the mirror. And finally, that there “are” no mirrors!

In the Vows of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra an image is projected of the “infinite” and the “interpenetration” of worlds. All the innumerable separate is contained in the innumerable One. We have to remark here that things, although present in each other, are not necessarily identical. They are after all identical in their “true nature”, not in their relative appearance.

The True Self

Avatamsaka-thought is covered by the necessity to eliminate all forms of duality. So, e.g., the problem of self/non-self or the dichotomy of samsara/nirvana can be eradicated through the ascend into higher dimensions of the One Totality that is the “true nature of things”.

The True Self (svabhava) hereby becomes identical with Enlightenment, Buddhahood (buddhata), Suchness (dharmata). The intellectual and emotional tensions associated with time/space fall away. Enlightenment is experienced as an “event” beyond any temporal/spatial context. Since traditionally samsara has no beginning (“it exists from the beginning of beginningless time”), while nirvana has no end (“it lasts until the end of endless time”), the transfer from the world of suffering to nirvana “happens” at the “moment of enlightenment” as long as samsara-and-nirvana are regarded as a “personal” event. Enlightenment “spans” both views and therefore has no beginning nor end.

With this Avatamsaka-thought also provided a solution to another Mahayana problem that had occupied Buddhist minds throughout several centuries: “Can Enlightenment still be realized by every being” (Ch. Shi-chüeh, J. shikaku: lit. “Entering upon Enlightenment”)? Or, is Enlightenment already realized for all beings (Ch. Pen-chüeh, J. Hongaku: lit. “Original, Primal Enlightenment”)? Also for this dilemma Avatamsaka will provide a solution: the tension between the “still to be realized” and the “already realized” Enlightenment is a purely dialectical one. Given that, from the perspective of Wisdom, Enlightenment is situated beyond any temporal/spatial context; from the perspective of Compassion, Enlightenment is to be realized in every moment by all beings. Indeed, time and history – as relative concepts – start anew in every moment (eka-ksana).

Since in Enlightenment Wisdom and Compassion are One, the difference between the two aspects of Enlightenment are solely epistemological and methodological, but in no way absolute.

Phenomenon / Noumenon

From Avatamsaka-thought in convergence with themes from the Lotus Sutra and Nirvana Sutra emerged the synchretistical view of the T’ien-t’ai school characterized by its strong mystical imprint. The metaphysical basis for this school was largely formed from Hua-yen philosophy. During the Sung Dynasty there arose a dispute within the T’ien-t’ai concerning the relationship between the relatively experienced (the phenomenal) and the all comprising Absolute (the noumenal).

The dispute started between two chief-disciples of the 11th T’ien-t’ai patriarch (Ch’ing-sun). One disciple, I-chi, later followed by Chih-li, proclaimed that the object of right meditation should be focused on the unenlightened within the mind and not on the pure and undefiled aspect of the mind, as was claimed by Chih-yen.

This disputatio, which started on the practical level of meditation, soon evolved into a dispute on the metaphysical level and is known as the shan-chia-shan-wai discussion (J. sange-sanrai). The “orthodox” T’ien-t’ai interpretation, which called itself “[The Teaching] on the Mountain”, remained with the assertion that all phenomena (shih) are mutually and indifferently comprised within the absolute (li) with which they are identical. This is the shi-shi-wu-ai: phenomena are mutually unhindered and interfused. Contrary to this stands the doctrine of which it was said that it was too much “Avatamsaka” and therefore stranger to T’ien-t’ai; hence the name “Outside the Mountain”. This teaching stated that phenomena are indirectly equal because they are with the all comprising Absolute. This than becomes: phenomena are not separated from the Absolute: (li-shih-wu-ai).

It is this kind of questions that have contributed to the need for extension of Buddhist thought in China (and later also in Korea and Japan). Namely the necessity to overcome new historical situations. It is for example the broadness of the scope of thought within the T’ien-t’ai that provided the basis for later evolutions. The characteristic evolution of Japanese Buddhism during the Kamakura Era would have been inconceivable without the input of Avatamsaka through T’ien-t’ai. The fact that great reformers such as Eisai (Rinzai-zen), Honen (Jodo-shu), Shinran (Jodo-shinshu), Dogen (Soto-zen), Nichiren (Nichirenshu) all started their spiritual career within the Tendai (J. for T’ien-t’ai), is self-evident.