The Huayan School of Chinese Buddhism

Translation of Nagarjuna's -Treatise on the Twelve Gates- as well as fazang's commentary on that treatise.

Fazang is a seminal figure for the tradition of Huayan Buddhism. Essay on the Golden Lion is the most widely translated into English of his writings. Yet systematic English-language scholarship on Fazang’s Essay is relatively sparse. Scholars agree that the central focus of the Essay is the relation between principle and thing — a relation akin to the one between emptiness and form and, according to Fazang, also akin to the relation between the golden substance of a lion statue and (...) the statue itself. Scholars disagree about what principle is. They also disagree about how Fazang conceptualizes the relation between principle and thing. This paper develops a novel interpretation for Fazang's conception of the principle-thing relation. The methodology involves situating Fazang's metaphor of the golden lion in relation to prior efforts, by Chinese Buddhists, to conceptualize the emptiness-form relation and using theoretical considerations, from some of Fazang’s other writings, to interpret various remarks Fazang makes about his metaphor of the golden lion. (shrink)

Few would deny that something ontologically depends on something else. Given that something depends on something, what depends on what? Huayan Buddhism 華嚴宗, a prominent Chinese Buddhist school, is known for its extensive thesis of interdependence, according to which everything depends on everything else. This intriguing thesis is entangled with seemingly paradoxical claims that everything is not only identified with everything else but also contained within it. Moreover, the radical thesis of interdependence entails that dependence is pervasive and symmetric. In (...) this paper, I first develop a contemporary interpretation of Huayan interdependence by employing the definitional account of essence and the essence-based account of dependence. Through these contemporary resources, I elucidate and unify the theses of interdependence, mutual identity, and mutual containment within Huayan Buddhism. I then propose a unique framework of ontological dependence that suggests varying degrees of ontological dependence, aimed at accommodating and explaining away our intuitions against pervasive and symmetric dependence. By contemporizing Huayan Buddhism, I explore its potential and facilitate engagement between contemporary metaphysics and Huayan Buddhism. (shrink)

Interpenetration, a central idea in Huayan Buddhist metaphysics, is commonly understood as the mutual dependence of all things. However, in Religion and Nothingness, Keiji Nishitani proposes that while everything is interdependent, each entity is also absolutely independent. Furthermore, Nishitani attributes a "non-objective" mode of being to entities in interpenetration. These tensions between dependence and independence, and objecthood and non-objecthood, reveal the uniqueness of Nishitani’s view and the limitations in the traditional understanding of interpenetration. This paper explores these tensions within Nishitani, (...) contrasts Nishitani’s approach to interpenetration with both the common view and Fazang’s view, addresses Nishitani’s treatment of contradictory utterances, and reflects on the relation between metahpysics and ethics in Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

Recently, much attention has been given to Buddhism as a precursor to contemporary holistic theories, and more specifically to the Huayan school’s radical holistic metaphysics (often given the metaphorical name of The Net of Indra), as well as to Huayan’s most elaborate theoretician, Fazang. Nevertheless, contemporary interpretations of Fazang have been weighted by either too strict an adherence to atomistic logic or by unfortunate translations. In this paper, I present new translations of the key passages of Fazang’s The Rafter Dialogue, (...) as well as a philosophical commentary that his departure from atomism. I then proceed to argue that the six characteristics Fazang attributes to a whole that cannot be reduced to its parts are both sufficient and necessary for holism. (shrink)

Extant discussions of Buddhist mereology give minimal attention to the soteriological significance of denying the reality of wholes. This is unfortunate, because the connection between mereology and soteriological is both significant and problematic. The connection is significant, because it supports an argument for the unreality of composite wholes that does not depend upon any claim about the nature of wholes. The connection is also problematic, because some Buddhists endorse the soteriological relevance of mereology despite admitting that composite wholes are real. (...) I address these issues by reviewing early Pāli Buddhist attitudes toward the soteriological significance of mereology, developing an argument for the unreality of wholes from the work of Buddhaghosa, and explicating an alternative approach from the Chinese tradition of Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism that calls into question some common assumptions about parts and wholes. (shrink)

Standard views about metaphysical structure presume that if metaphysical structure is hierarchical, any priority ordering of individuals is rigid or situationally invariant. This paper challenges this presumption. The challenge derives from an effort to interpret the kind of metaphysical structure implicit in writings central to the Huayan tradition of Chinese Buddhism. The Huayan tradition views reality as a realm of thoroughgoing interdependence. Close attention to primary sources indicates that this view does not fit comfortably in any of the metaphysical structures (...) familiar from contemporary analytic metaphysics. Accordingly, this paper also develops a conception of metaphysical structure that rejects the standard presumption. Motivation for this conception derives from attending to certain formal analogies between kinds of metaphysical structure and kinds of social organization. These analogies provide guidance for a conception of metaphysical structure as heterarchical or situationally variable. This conception breaks new ground for analytic metaphysics and opens conceptual space for interpreting Huayan metaphysics as a heterarchical variation of foundationalism. (shrink)

According to many experiments in cross-cultural psychology, East Asians exhibit holistic cognitive style typified by use of resemblance heuristics, field dependence, external sources of causation, intuitive forms of reasoning, and interdependent forms of social thinking. Holistic cognitive style contrasts with analytic cognitive style, which is common to Westerners. Section 1 presents information on the background of Buddhism’s entry into and treatment by China. Section 2 discusses experimental evidence for the representation of holistic cognitive style in contemporary East Asians. Section 3 (...) presents preliminary evidence for the interaction between holistic cognitive style and the history of ideas in China at large. Section 4 analyzes two discussions of the same philosophical problem conducted by Chinese Buddhist philosopher Fazang and Indian Vedic philosopher Shankara. It is provisionally argued that the interpretive strategies displayed by Fazang interact with several components of holistic cognitive style, in contrast with Shankara. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

La tesis trata de diversos problemas asociados con la metafísica de las entidades temporales y argumenta que muchos de ellos ocurren únicamente si asumimos de entrada que las entidades temporales tienen partes en el tiempo. Usando herramientas de lógica contemporánea y filosofía budista, la tesis argumenta a favor de una metafísica en que las entidades temporales pueden extenderse sobre períodos de tiempo sin tener partes en cada momento comprendido en dicha extensión. -/- The thesis deals with various problems associated with (...) the metaphysics of temporal entities and argues that many of them occur only if we assume from the outset that temporal entities have parts in time. Using tools of contemporary logic and Buddhist philosophy, the thesis argues in favor of a metaphysics in which temporal entities can extend over periods of time without having parts in each moment included in said extension. (shrink)

This essay seeks to understand the nature of both interpersonal and intercultural dialogue from the perspective of Zen Buddhism as it has been interpreted, in dialogue with Western philosophy and religion, by the central figure of the third generation of the Kyoto School: Ueda Shizuteru (1926–2019). It examines how Ueda develops a philosophy of interpersonal dialogue on the basis of Zen teachings and practices. In particular, it reveals how Ueda draws on Huayan and Zen Buddhist notions of “host” and “guest” (...) to unfold the dialogical implications of the tenth of The Ten Oxherding Pictures, kōan interviews, linked verse poetry, and the Japanese greeting of the bow. The final sections of this article then explore the implications for intercultural dialogue of Ueda’s account of human existence as dwelling in a “twofold world” through a circulating process of “exiting language and exiting into language.”. (shrink)

This paper examines the metaphysics of interdependence in the work of the Chinese Buddhist Fazang. The dominant approach of this metaphysics interprets it as a species of metaphysical coherentism wherein everything depends upon everything else, no individual is more fundamental than any other, and so reality itself is non-well-founded in the sense that chains of dependence never terminate. I argue, to the contrary, that Fazang's metaphysics is better interpreted as a novel variety of foundationalism. I argue, as well, using set- (...) and graph-theoretic techniques, that there is a consistent way to model this alternative interpretation, and that this model differs in significant ways from a coherentist model. (shrink)

Buddhism is a tradition that set itself decidedly against theism, with the development of complex arguments against the existence of God. I propose that the metaphysical conclusions reached by some schools in the Mahayana tradition present a vision of reality that, with some apparently small modification, would ground an argument for the existence of God. This argument involves explanation in terms of natures rather than causal agency. Yet I conclude not only that the Buddhist becomes a theist in embracing such (...) explanations as legitimate, but also ipso facto abandons their metaphysical project and ceases to be a Buddhist. (shrink)

The theism-atheism debate is foreign to many Mahāyāna Buddhist thinkers such as the Japanese Zen Master Dōgen. Nevertheless, his philosophy of ‘expression’ is able to shine a new light on the various incarnations of this debate throughout history. This paper will explore a/theism from Dōgen’s philosophical standpoint. Dōgen introduces the notion of ‘expression’ to describe the concomitant vertical and horizontal relationships of the religious project, namely the relationship between the individual and the divine as well as the relationship among a (...) multiplicity of individuals, each of which Dōgen conceives of as an expression of the divine and/or the oneness of the cosmos. Dōgen’s philosophy presupposes the ‘way of emptiness’ and Chengguan’s ‘four dharma worlds’. To Dōgen, the former indicates the conventional nature of predication and signification, while the latter denotes the existential interwovenness of numerous individuals and the divine oneness of the cosmos. Such a philosophy implies that all truth claims and philosophical positions are mere intellectual and discursive constructions that are formulated against a perceived other. Therefore, Dōgen observes laconically that ‘when one side is expressed, the other is obscured’ or, as Dōgen says elsewhere, ‘when expression is expressed, non-expression is not expressed.’ Dōgen’s philosophical framework provides some interesting insights about one or more discourses on atheism: Again, the basic assumption is that all philosophical paradigms, systems, and positions are devoid of an absolute truth value, framed in a specific cultural and historical context which they express, and formulated vis-à-vis a perceived other. In this paper, I will look at Friedrich Nietzsche’s atheism from the perspective of Dōgen’s philosophical standpoint. Concretely, I will present Nietzsche’s position on his own terms, translate his philosophy into Dōgen’s terminology, interpret his philosophy from the standpoint of Dōgen’s philosophical approach, and assess the utility of such an exercise. I believe that such a project enables us to read theism through the eyes of atheism, atheism through the eyes of theism, both through the eyes of Dōgen, and Dōgen through the eyes of the a/theism debate. In this last section, I will introduce the language of Nishida Kitarō who attempted a similar project in his The Logic of Basho and the Religious Worldview. The goal of this project is to determine what atheism denies, what atheism contributes, and why a multi-faceted and multi-cultural engagement of atheism is important today. (shrink)

Chan Buddhism as we know it today can perhaps be traceable to what is known as the Hongzhou school, founded by Mazu Daoyi. Although it was Huineng who represented an important turn in the development of Chan with his iconoclastic approach to enlightenment as sudden rather than gradual, it was in Huineng’s successor, Mazu, where we saw its complete radicalization. Specifically, Mazu introduced a radicalized approach of collapsing substance and function, as well as principle and phenomena, into a complete overlap. (...) As a result of this radicalization, the Hongzhou lineage received some strong criticisms, the most important of which was possibly by Guifeng Zongmi, of the Heze lineage. Zongmi criticized Mazu for his supposed antinomianism, claiming that Mazu’s approach completely stunts moral and religious cultivation. Due to their commitment to “suchness” rather than deliberate theory, however, Hongzhou never bothered to answer Zongmi’s critique. As such, it is the goal of this article to utilize Guo Xiang’s philosophy as a tool to understand the implicit Hongzhou response to Zongmi. As I shall demonstrate, his philosophical enterprise shares the same ontology of absolute oblivion which Hongzhou was also predicated upon and is, therefore, a possible alternative to understanding what could have been the Hongzhou response to the alleged antinomianism. (shrink)

The Chinese word “bukong” 不空 appearing in the Āgama texts is a rendering of Pāli words such as aritta (not discarded), asuñña (not empty), amogha (not vain). Whereas the Madhyamika texts never affirm the term non‐empty as a counterpart of the concept emtpy, the Yogācāra texts overlay it with a slightly negative connotation as a false imagination. However, Tathāgatagarbha thought affirms that term positively, and Chinese strands of Buddhism further adopt it as an absolute affirmation by identifying emptiness with non‐emptiness, (...) thereby turning the concept of mutual dependence or counterpart into that of mutual identification. In the Huayan jing, the concepts such as aśūnya, aśūnyatā, amogha, amoghatā are equally rendered as “bukong”, and this term thus comes to have a wide range of meanings including non‐empty, without any errors, beneficial, not deluded, or fully endowed with wisdom and compassion, and so on, which are attributes of tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, we see that the Huayan jing has such diverse meaning in the word “bukong” in according to the context. In the case of the typical Chinese Buddhist text Dasheng qixin lun, “bukong” indicates the state in which the pure dharmas are fulfilled. It seems that this text regards the essence as empty while considering the function to be non‐empty. When we contemplate on the meanings of “bukong” appearing in the Huayan jing, we may say that this scripture played a role of bridging Indian Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism. In particular, the comparisons of the meanings of “bukong” in the scriptures and treatises will reveal the affirmative spirit of the Chinese Buddhists, which is implicit in Indian Mahāhyāna Buddhism. 『아함경』에서 ‘不空’이라 한역된 원어는 Pā. aritta(버려지지 않은), asuñña(비어 있지 않은), amogha(헛되지 않은) 등이다. 중관에서는 공의 상대(相待)인 불공을 절대 부정하는 반면, 유식에서는 허망 분별로 인한 부정적인 이미지가 살짝 보이다가 여래장 사상이 도입되면서 긍정적인 이미지로 전환하는데, 그것이 중국불교에서는 절대 긍정으로 바뀌어서 ‘空即不空’인 상의상즉(相依相卽)의 의미로 공과 분리가 불가능해진다. 『화엄경』에서는 ‘不空’이란 역어가 Skt. aśūnya, aśūnyatā, amogha, amoghatā로, 그 의미가 어리석지 않은 지혜와 자비가 충만한 여래장의 뜻으로 무한히 펼쳐져서 불공이란 꽃이 활짝 핀다. 이렇게 불공은 문맥에 따라 그 의미가 다르나, 중국불교의 전형적인 논인 『기신론』에서는 정법(淨法)이 만족스러우면 ‘불공’이라 하면서, 체(體)가 공이고 용(用)이 불공이라고 말하는 것으로 보인다. ‘不空’이라는 역어만을 놓고 대조해 본다면, 초기불교 경전인 『아함경』에서의 불공의 의미가 『화엄경』에서 되살아나는 듯하여 『화엄경』이 인도불교와 중국불교의 가교역할을 한다고 감히 추정할 수 있는데, 특히 경론에서 불공의 의미만 가지고 비교한다면, 『화엄경』에는 인도 대승불교 속에 자연스레 녹아 있는 긍정적인 중국 불자들의 마음이 엿보인다. (shrink)

Names name, but there are no individuals who are named by names. This is the key to an elegant and ideologically parsimonious strategy for analyzing the Buddhist catuṣkoṭi. The strategy is ideologically parsimonious, because it appeals to no analytic resources beyond those of standard predicate logic. The strategy is elegant, because it is, in effect, an application of Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions to Buddhist contexts. The strategy imposes some minor adjustments upon Russell's theory. Attention to familiar catuṣkoṭi from (...) Vacchagotta and Nagarjuna as well as more obscure catuṣkoṭi from Khema, Zhi Yi, and Fa Zang motivates the adjustments. The result is a principled structural distinction between affirmative and negative catuṣkoṭi, as well as analyses for each that compare favorably to more recent efforts from Tillemans, Westerhoff, and Priest. (shrink)

This paper explicates the counting ten coins metaphor as it appears in Fazang’s Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang’s inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and more precise. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, presenting Fazang’s version of the metaphor as improving upon prior efforts by Zhiyan and Ŭisang to interpret a brief stanza in the Avataṁsaka sutra; second, providing textual evidence to support this (...) interpretation; third, contrasting this interpretation with alternatives from Francis Cook as well as Yasuo Deguchi and Katsuhiko Sano. (shrink)

This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist philosophy, and especially for those who aim to engage with the extensive question-and-answer section of the Rafter Dialogue. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, contextualizing Fazang's account of the characteristics with earlier Buddhist attempts to theorize the relationships between wholes (...) and their parts; second, explicating the meaning Fazang likely attributes to each of the six characteristics; third, situating the characteristics as explicated within Fazang's broader metaphysical framework. (shrink)

“Wuqiong,” namely the concept of infinite regress has been identified with the hallmark of the Huayan scholasticism, which is dubbed as “chongchong wujin” (repetitive containment ad infinitum). Such an inconceivable perspective is drawn from the Huayan thinkers’ presupposition that a part contains the whole, which is again composed of such parts. But many philosophical traditions, in general, try to avoid the infinite regress as one of the logical fallacies. This paper examines the Buddhist literature that alludes to “wuqiong” as infinite (...) regress, and highlights that the Huayan thinkers also had a critical attitude toward this issue when they discussed the ontological status of the dissociated factors. But they also used the term in a positive sense of inexhaustiveness. This twofold usage of the term seems to show that the Huayan thinkers critically incorporated the elements of previous scholarship even when they created their own unique metaphysical theories. ‘무궁’, 곧 무한소급은 ‘중중무진’으로 표현되는 화엄교학과 동일시되어 왔다. 그것은 부분이 전체를 포함한다는 화엄사상가들의 이론적 전제로부터 각각의 부분들에 전체가 끊임없이 내포된다는 불가사의한 세계관이 도출되기 때문이다. 그러나 불교철학은 물론, 서양철학에서도 무한소급은 논리적 오류로서 회피해야 하는 것으로 간주되어 왔다. 이와 관련하여 본 논문에서는 화엄사상 성립 이전의 몇몇 불교 문헌들에서 특히 유위 4상(相), 득(得)과 같은 불상응행법을 설정할 경우 ‘무궁과’라는 논리적 오류가 발생함을 지적한 사례들을 살펴보았는데, 그러한 비판이 화엄의 문헌들에도 거의 그대로 수용되고 있음을 확인할 수 있다. 그러나 화엄의 문헌에는 ‘무궁’이라는 용어가 ‘무궁진’, ‘무진’, ‘무변’과 동의어로서 긍정적인 맥락에서 사용하고 있는 경우도 자주 발견된다. 이처럼 화엄의 문헌에 이중적인 의미로 사용된 ‘무궁’이라는 개념은 화엄사상가들이 자신들의 독특한 형이상학을 제시하면서도 그들 이전의 여러 교학체계들을 비판적으로 수용했음을 보여주는 증거라고 할 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

Wang Fuzhi’s 王夫之 remarks on Buddhism have not been given sufficient attention despite increasing research on him. The few works on this topic either focus on just one aspect of his view of Buddhism or fail to disclose the purpose and uniqueness of his attack of it. This essay analyzes his view of Buddhism comprehensively, in particular his insight into the paradox of Buddhist universal love and his rejection of Buddhist retribution and reincarnation from Confucian righteousness and qi 氣-monism. In (...) addition, it also explores the reason, context, and limitations of his criticism, that is, his reaction to the popular approach of “understanding Confucian classics through learning Buddhism” in the late Ming 明, his response to Zongmi’s 宗密 criticism of Confucian cosmology and human nature, and his misunderstanding of some Buddhist concepts. Yet his criticism is still illuminating to our understanding of the interaction of Confucianism with Buddhism and other religions. (shrink)

This chapter sheds new light on the interaction between Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism by exploring and comparing the thoughts of the ninth century Huayan-Chan Buddhist Zongmi 宗密 and the twentieth century Neo-Confucian Mou Zongsan 牟宗三. It reveals the structural parallel between their opposing theories: both hold a doctrine of true mind as the central component, and both are influenced by the tathāgatagarbha 如來藏 doctrine of The Awakening of Faith. The former uses them to synthesize Huayan and Chan Buddhist soteriology; the (...) latter assimilates them into his framework of Neo-Confucian moral metaphysics. Seen as a response to Zongmi’s criticism of Confucian metaphysics in general, and the shortcomings of the mandate of heaven and the lack of causal theory in particular, Mou stresses the universality of the Confucian Dao, which is supported by the Song Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi’s unified ontological principle. Rather than appealing to the mandate of heaven, Mou makes clear in following Wang Yangming that the Confucian Dao can be manifested by the sage through his infinite intellectual mind, which is immanent in every human being, so as to solve the problem of the highest good without postulating a transcendent god nor appealing to the karmic causality. Mou’s response, supplemented by other Neo-Confucian theories such as Xiong Shili’s and Tang Junyi’s, is a prominent example of how Confucian tradition meets the challenge of Chinese Buddhism while absorbing Buddhist influence. However, the author also points out that Mou’s Neo-Confucian philosophy provides a possibility of defending Chinese Buddhism in face of the critique raised by Critical Buddhism. (shrink)

This article attempts to reframe the state of research on the notion of goblet words in the Zhuangzi. Recent studies predominantly view the notion of zhiyan as referring to peculiar stylistic forms exhibited in the Zhuangzi—forms such as dilemmatic questions and paradoxes. In this article, I question the quick identification of these forms as zhiyan. I argue that zhiyan are essentially definite yet provisional simple-form utterances located on the level of everyday interaction and coexistence. On this level, the peculiar stylistic (...) forms do not play their part. However, such stylistic forms do become indispensable in discussing and recommending zhiyan. It is on this meta-level—for the Zhuangzi, the level of writing—that we find these forms employed. Based on structural similarities, we may stretch the label ‘zhiyan’ to include such forms but should keep in mind that any such extension is secondary to the use of language in coexisting with others. (shrink)

Fazang’s arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra’s rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang’s central arguments in that treatise, namely, his argument that mutually reliant dharmas are mutually identical. The chapter presents the background context for Fazang’s argument, reconstructs the argument’s logical structure, interprets the central concepts appearing therein, and explains why Fazang might have found plausible his argument’s premises. Specific discussion points include: the (...) non-duality of existence and emptiness; relations between causes and their conditions; the meaning of creation and identity; connections with the ti-yong paradigm; Fazang’s analogy of the ten coins. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of Fazang’s metaphysics for contemporary discussions of substance and ontological foundations. (shrink)

"The Treatise on the Origin of Humanity (Yuanren lun) by the Huayan patriarch Zongmi classifies various teachings of Buddhism on a scale of relative profundity, and specifically critiques the weaknesses of the teachings of Confucianism and Daoism, which he regards as inferior to Buddhism. This work formed the basis for some of the arguments in later East Asian history on the relationship of the three teachings." --.

In the paper the system of doctrinal classification created by the Buddhist scholar of the Chinese Tang Dynasty Guifeng Zongmi has been analyzed. The paper consists of two parts. In the first part the author describes Zongmi’s doctrinal classification, focusing on the process of the deconstruction of consecutive Buddhist doctrines. In the second part the author compares particular doctrines with the most important theories on the essence of religion. The comparison aims at revealing the limitations of those theories, when applied (...) to the understanding of the religious systems, based on the gradual attaining of gnosis, such as the system of panjiao. In the conclusion the author suggests the creation of a synthesis of the enlisted concepts of religious studies, based on the synthesis of the Buddhist doctrines combined within the panjiao system. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the Huayan Buddhism of Li Tongxuan. At the core of his Buddhism is the claim that sentient beings are equipped with exactly the same qualities as the Buddha. In his analysis of the 80-fascicle version of the Huayan Jing, Li claims that Huayan teaching is a subitist teaching that proposes the awakening in this lifetime. In this context, unlike “orthodox” Huayan thinkers, Li claims that the chapter “Entering the Realm of Reality” is the core of the Huayan (...) Jing and that Sudhana’s pilgrimage in this chapter demonstrates the importance of practice as opposed to theorization.I address these issues by examining Li’s concept of time, which I identify as “non-temporality.” In the first section, I discuss non-temporality in connection with the Buddhist themes of existence and non-existence and Li’s doctrinal classification. In the second, I address Li’s discussion of nature-arising and subitism. In the third, I discuss Li’s comparative interpretation of Sudhana in the Huayan Jing and the Dragon Girl in the Lotus Sūtra. I conclude with a consideration of the ontological and existential implications of Li’s Huayan phenomenology. (shrink)

The texts written by Huayan thinkers are characterized by rather unintelligible expressions that identify the one with the many. Such an identity thesis can be justified by the fact that all individual objects in the world are based on the common principle of emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā). But we need to take into consideration the fact that Huayan thought emerged from the typical Chinese attitude that appreciates the inherent value of every phenomenal object. Thus the relationship between the one and the (...) many in Huayan thought can be understood in terms of the parts and the whole composed of such parts. Generally speaking, Buddhist literature in the early phase seems to represent the so-called mereological reductionism because it aims at revealing that the concept of “I” or “person” as a whole is illusory. Huayan thought points out, however, that the parts and the whole are equally significant and mutually dependent. Furthermore, it identifies the parts with the whole by showing the existence of parts of an object is a necessary and sufficient condition for that of the object as a whole. It is important to note here that Huayan thought does not simply indulge in metaphysical speculations but emphasizes its soteriological purport that an initial stage of practice contains its whole process. Although Huayan thought has been often dubbed as a philosophy of totality and considered to uphold totalitarianism, such a misunderstanding could be redressed by a survey conducted in this paper. Furthermore, since Huayan thought does not posit a singular and ultimate cause but prioritizes each and every individual, it should be seen as having a profound practical significance in this polarized society. 화엄사상가들의 저작에서 우리는 일(一)과 다(多) 사이에 동일성의 관계가 성립한다는 다소 이해하기 어려운 표현을 자주 발견한다. 그러한 동일성의 관계는 모든 개별적 사물들이 공(空)이라고 하는 공통된 이치에 기반하고 있기 때문에 성립하는 것이기도 하지만, 그 관계를 해석하는 데 있어서 우리는 모든 현상적 대상들의 고유한 가치를 인정하는 중국적 태도에서 화엄사상이 출현했다는 점을 고려할 필요가 있다. 따라서 화엄사상에서 일과 다 사이의 관계는 어떠한 하나의 현상적 대상 전체와 그것을 구성하는 부분들 사이의 관계를 가리킨다고 볼 수 있다. 일반적으로 초기불교의 문헌에서는 여러 요소들이 결합된 총체로서의 ‘나’ 또는 ‘인간’이라는 개념의 허구성을 지적하기 위하여 전체를 부분들로 환원하여 전체라는 것이 개념적 허구임을 보이는 부분론적 환원주의(mereological reductionism)를 채택하는 경향이 있었다. 그러나 화엄사상은 부분과 전체가 모두 유의미할 뿐만 아니라 아니라 상호 의존적임을 지적하고, 더 나아가 어떤 대상의 부분들은 그 대상 전체의 성립을 위한 필요충분조건임을 보임으로써 부분과 전체를 동일시한다. 그러나 화엄사상의 이러한 입장은 순전히 형이상학적 사변에만 머물지 않고 수행의 최초의 단계에 그것의 전과정이 포함되어 있다는 실천론적 의미를 내포하고 있다는 점에 유의해야 한다. 이러한 고찰을 통해 우리는 화엄사상을 흔히 전체성의 철학(philosophy of totality)이라고 규정함으로써 그것을 마치 전체주의를 옹호하는 것처럼 오도하는 경향을 바로잡을 수 있을 것이다. 또한 화엄사상은 어떠한 단일하고 궁극적인 원인을 상정하지 않고 각각의 개별자들을 우선시한다는 점에서 다원화된 사회에서 더욱 적합한 실천론적 의미를 가지고 있다고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

In Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought, King Pong Chiu discusses Thomé H. Fang and Tang Junyi, two of the most important Confucian thinkers in twentieth-century China, who appropriated aspects of the medieval Chinese Buddhist school of Huayan to develop a response to the challenges of ‘scientism’, the belief that quantitative natural science is the only valuable part of human learning and the only source of truth. -/- As Chiu argues, Fang’s and Tang’s selective appropriations of Huayan thought (...) paid heed to the hermeneutical importance of studying ancient texts in order to be more responsive to modern issues, and helped confirm the values of Confucianism under the challenge of ‘scientism’, a topic widely ignored in academia. (shrink)

Guo Cheen’s Translating Totality in Parts: Chengguan’s Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra translates the first of eighty fascicles or juan of Chengguan’s A Compilation of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Flower Ornament Sutra with Greatly Proper and Extensive Discourses by the Buddhas as well as the preface to his The Meanings Proclaimed in the Subcommentaries Accompanying the Commentaries to the Flower Ornament Sutra with Greatly Proper and Extensive Discourses by the Buddha. Guo Cheen translates the preface first, (...) as it explains why Chengguan wrote his commentaries. The Compilation itself is composed by combining his Commentaries to the Avatamsaka.. (shrink)

Chapter 27 of the ancient Chinese text the Zhuangzi describes three kinds of language: yuyan, zhiyan, and chongyan. Wang Fuzhi first coined the term ‘sanyan ’ or ‘tripartite-language’ to emphasize their overlapping characteristics and incorporate them into a cohesive approach to the text. Sanyan has been used consistently in interpreting the Zhuangzi since the earliest compilation of its extant version and continues to inform academic publications today. Based on descriptions found in the Zhuangzi's ‘miscellaneous chapters’ and on contemporary scholarship, I (...) will explain how this model of sanyan functions and then how it facilitates philosophical reading of the Zhuangzi. Understanding the Zhuangzi's metaphorical language through sanyan lends access into the interrelated semantic field of the pre-Qin philosophical canon and helps unravel Zhuangzi's often-cryptic philosophical expressions. (shrink)

Traditionally, Huayan 華嚴 (Jp. Kegon; K. Hwaŏm) scholasticism has been characterized by a grandiose metaphysical edifice formulated by some pioneering figures during the Sui 隋 (581–618) and Tang 唐 (618907) periods. Led by this stereotyped depiction, scholars tend to pay a little too much attention to the thought of the so-called “five Huayan patriarchs,” to the point that they fail to notice diverse facets of the tradition. As pointed out by Robert M. Gimello, such an attitude can be labelled as (...) a “drastic over-simplification of the actual complexity of its history.” He thus suggests that we take due notice of “its great diversity” and “innovation and disjuncture.” -/- In this respect, a comparative study of two Huayan thinkers, who were contemporaries but responsible for presenting quite different frameworks for the interpretation of the Dafangguang fo huayan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經 (hereafter, Flower Garland Sutra), could redress the abovementioned stereotyped understanding of the tradition. In this paper, I will mainly draw on important passages from the works of Fazang 法藏 (643–712) and Li Tongxuan 李通玄 (635–730), thereby hoping to give a nuanced picture of the tradition and counter the one-sided emphasis on the “orthodox” lineage. An exhaustive comparison of the philosophies of the two masters would go beyond the scope of this paper, however. My focus will thus be limited to an analysis of two key concepts, namely the “six marks” (liuxiang 六相) and the “sphere of edification” (shehua fenqi 攝化分齊 or shehua jingjie 攝化境界), which were adopted by the two figures but used in different ways. (shrink)

[Some cursory remarks on the influence of Huayan on Neo-Confucianism] It seems to be common Sinological knowledge that the complementary notions of “structure”(li) and “affairs”(more commonly:“events”, shi) have had a pervasive impact on Neo-Confucianism. And yet, a cursory comparison of the conceptualizations of the term li suggests that this assertion needs some qualification: While the emphasis on the term li mirrors Buddhist influence, the Cheng-Zhu school’s concept of li may be termed genuinely Confucian. This calls to mind an easily overlooked, (...) yet rather widespread mechanism in religious and philosophical contacts. (shrink)

I will compare Huayan Buddhism's metaphysical vision ith that of A.N. Whitehead, both of them emphasizing that events in dynamic relation constitute the fundamental elements of reality. In Huayan Buddhism, all events are organically related to each ot and thereby constitute a harmonious and dynamic network of existents as metaphorized by Indra's Net of Jewels, in which one jewel reflects many other jewels and many reflect one. In Whitehead's view, events, or actual entities in Process and Reality, constitute the basic (...) elements of the universe that are in the proces of creativity in which many are integrated into one while adding a new one to the many. The purpose of this comparative work is to philoophically articulate an ontology ofdynamic relation in support of a theory of strangification. (shrink)

This book offers an annotated translation of two of preeminent Chinese Tang dynasty monk Chengguan’s most revered masterpieces. With this book, Chengguan’s Commentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra and The Meanings Proclaimed in the Subcommentaries Accompanying the Commentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra are finally brought to Western audiences.

When the question is posed as to when Chinese thought influenced Western philosophy, people often turn to the philosophy of the German rationalist Christian Wolff, whose 1721 speech on the virtues of Confucianism led to his academic indictment and eventual ousting from the University of Halle in 1723. In his speech, Wolff lauds the Chinese for attaining virtues by natural revelation rather than appealing to Christian revelation, which made their accomplishments all the more impressive in his eyes (Fuchs 2006). According (...) to Kanamori (1997), the audience of Wolff’s speech “criticized it as the product of atheistic thoughts because they thought that the speaker valued Chinese morality as highly as Christian morals, which were formulated by divine revelation” (p. 299). The worry, in other words, was that Wolff was corrupted by Chinese thought since the atheism of Confucianism may have influenced Wolff’s own views. Almost invariably, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s name is involved in conversations that question the Chinese influence on Western philosophy, but it is typically tempered by the standard scholarly interpretation of the Leibniz-China connection, which is that Leibniz respected Chinese thought but was not influenced by it. I will argue against this standard scholarly interpretation by showing how Leibniz could have been influenced by Chinese thought. In particular, I propose that Leibniz’s conception of monads, which is something that we only see after his engagement with Chinese thought, may have been influenced by the Huayan Buddhist concept of li, which creeps into the Neo-Confucianism with which Leibniz had exposure. Should my argument be persuasive, this means that Chinese thought influenced the Western world sooner than has been previously believed. (shrink)

The story of Huayan Buddhism intertwines in many ways with many other more well‐known forms of Buddhist thought. The Buddhist concepts of upāya or “skillful means,” prajnapti from Yogācāra and paramārtha satya from Madhyamaka, justify a range of pragmatic propositions, which represent a healthy way of viewing the world. Upāya refers to the diagnostic and prescriptive skill of a buddha or bodhisattva, who is ostensibly able to discern a particular person's problem and recommend a helpful strategy for solving it. This (...) is a completely contextual approach, though, because different problems lead to different strategies. The metaphysics underlying Huayan's philosophy of totality is based on the central Buddhist model of interdependent causality known as prātityasamutpāda. (shrink)

This essay considers an ethical paradigm that can be drawn from Buddhist and postmodern philosophy. Ethics is a practical branch of philosophy and an ethical paradigm is closely connected to the fundamental structure and tenets of a philosophical system. That ethics is a practical branch of philosophy also indicates that meaning and value of a certain ethical paradigm is directly related to the environments in which the paradigm is understood and practiced. In considering an ethical paradigm based on Buddhist and (...) postmodern philosophy, and doing so in the context of the 21st century in which we live, we will examine a paradigm I call an "ethics of tension." I will first outline the concept, and discuss how this paradigm can be a form of ethics that can be envisioned in Buddhist and postmodern philosophy. Finally, I will consider the meaning of ethics and the ethical that the ethics of tension would like to underline as an ethical discourse and for an ethical life. (shrink)

Although there are various studies comparing Greek and Indian philosophy and religion, and Chinese and Western philosophy and religion, Brahman and Dao: Comparatives Studies in Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion is a first of its kind that brings together Indian and Chinese philosophies and religions. Brahman and Dao helps close the gap on a much needed examination on the rich history of Buddhist transmission to China, and the many generations of Indian Buddhist missionaries to China and Chinese Buddhist pilgrims (...) to India, including the legendary Bodhidharma, and Faxian and Xuanzang. (shrink)

Huayan Buddhist philosophers and John Dewey share a perspective on emptiness or dependent origination. This article compares Dewey's local, contextual, and relational metaphysics with Huayan thinkers’ use of the metaphor of Indra's jewel net to extend their relational metaphysics to an infinite extent. Huayan thinkers base their ethics of compassion on the recognition of the infinite relatedness of all things. Dewey prefers constructing social institutions that foster experiences that are reliably aesthetically unified. This dispute is significant because pragmatism and Buddhism (...) both provide promising ethical positions based on the understanding of persons as temporally limited and relational. (shrink)

Modern art history practice often treats Buddhist icons or ritual objects as unique objects, focusing on their originality and uniqueness. This text investigates how the paradoxical Buddhist doctrine of ‘the one and the many’ was translated into visual language through manipulation of the relationship between copies and the original. It analyses the different tactics and strategies formulated around given socio-historical frameworks to visualise the notion of infinity, and ultimately the structure of the universe, and suggests that multiple copies of a (...) single design were more potent a vehicle than single objects in expressing ideas related to the Buddhist metaphysics. (shrink)

Spinoza, as a monist and a rationalist, seems unlikely to have occasion to confront any form of the solipsism problem. However, a close examination of his epistemology reveals that he does in fact confront a very radical form of this problem, and offers an equally radical solution to it, derived from the very epistemological premises that make it a potential problem for him. In particular, we find that the conception of the mind as the “idea of the body,” premised on (...) the strict identity of mental modes (“ideas”) and extended modes (“bodies”) forecloses any possibility of awareness extending “beyond” the confines of the finite body, or of any idea being able to be about anything other than its own bodily mode: ideas can only be ideas “of” the body of which they are the idea, and hence the mind, as the idea of the body, cannot have any ideas “of” anything outside of the body. The solution comes from the “Common Notions” which establish the existence of the world outside the body not by “reaching” that world, but merely by establishing immanently the nature of the finite body qua finite body. This manner of instantiating an infinite externality of the body within the body itself, though highly exceptional in European intellectual history, bears interesting similarities to the solutions to distinct but parallel problems concerning the relation of the finite to the infinite found in Chinese thought, in particular in the Zhuangzi and in the Huayan and Tiantai schools of Buddhism. (shrink)

This dissertation explores diverse facets of the Chinese Huayan tradition by analyzing the thought of the lay exegete Li Tongxuan (635–730). -/- Although Li's ideas have been considered idiosyncratic and even heterodox from the standpoint of the "orthodox" five Huayan patriarchs, we should not restrict our perspective to this narrow framework. As a lay scholar who had a strong practical orientation, Li had a solid literary background in indigenous Chinese philosophy and applied this knowledge to the explication of the newly (...) translated eighty-fascicle Flower Garland Sūtra ( Dafangguang fo huayan jing, Avatamsaka-sūtra ). Thus his exegesis is characterized by practicality and concreteness on the one hand and marked by originality and intuitiveness on the other hand. (shrink)

This article will first give an account of Mou's judgment of the transcendental character of Huayan School by tracing his understanding of the doctrinal relationship between the “One Mind Opens Two Doors” in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna and the “Simply True Mind” of Huayan School. Second, Mou's interpretation of “the co-dependent origination of tathagatgarbha” of Huayan School will be analyzed so as to identify the sense in which Mou considers that the teaching of Huayan School is perfect. (...) This will be explicated in detail in the second and third parts. However, Mou's interpretation of the “Perfect” Doctrine of Huayan School draws our attention to the fact that the “distinctive” ontological explanation of all dharmas in Huayan teaching is different from that of the Tiantai School. Mou argues that the Huayan School is not the final and authentic “Perfect” Doctrine of Buddhism. In the fourth part we will discuss this in detail. Finally, does Mou's transcendental interpretation do justice to the Huayan School? Wing-cheuk Chan (Chen Rongzhuo inline image) criticizes such a reading as a mere step toward a proper understanding of the dialectical essence of Huayan School. We will introduce this in the last part of this article. (shrink)

Huayan Buddhism is regarded as one of the most philosophical schools of Chinese Buddhism, representing the elite-scholar Buddhism under the Tang Dynasty. Its vision of truth is based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, the scripture that Huayan masters studied, explained, and commented intensively throughout their lives. This was the common vocation of these monks, which gradually created a lineage of the Huayan tradition, a succession of exegetes who believed that the Avatamsaka Sutra was the consummate teaching of Buddha preached directly after (...) his enlightenment under the bodhi tree. Although the base text of Huayan Buddhism was the Avatamsaka Sutra, classified as the round or perfect teaching in the classification of doctrines (panjiao), other teachings, such as Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and Tathāgatagarbha had exerted a great influence on the way Huayan scholars apprehended and interpreted this Mahāyāna scripture. In this article, we are going to discuss how Yogācāra philosophy was evaluated in the context of Huayan Buddhism, how the Huayan masters classified the consciousness-only teachings, and finally how they applied this philosophy in revealing the purport of the inline image, formulating its own distinctive school, the round teaching of one vehicle. (shrink)