#hua-yen buddhism

[didanawisgi]

“The Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor for the structure of reality. Imagine a vast net; at each crossing point there is a jewel; each jewel is perfectly clear and reflects all the other jewels in the net, the way two mirrors placed opposite each other will reflect an image ad infinitum. The jewel in this metaphor stands for an individual being, or an individual consciousness, or a cell or an atom. Every jewel is intimately connected with all other jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change, however slight, in every other jewel.”

From The Enlightened Mind by Stephen Mitchell.

“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite. The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mututal intercausality.”

~ Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra

Photo: Indra’s Net by Doug Benner 

[talonabraxas]

“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite. The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mututal intercausality.” -Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra

Indra's Net Talon Abraxas

[futuroprimordial]

Mother's Web

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image."

- Alan Watts

*

Indra's Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependences [...] I seek to revive it as the foundation for Vedic cosmology and show how it went on to become the central principle of Buddhism, and from there spread into mainstream Western discourse across several disciplines.

The Avatamsaka Sutra (which means 'Flower Garland') of Mahayana Buddhism uses the metaphor of Indra's Net to explain cosmic interpenetration. This sutra explains everything as both a mirror reflecting all ana an image reflected by all. Everything is simultaneously cause and effect, support and supported. This important sutra was translated from Sanskrit, and its logic further developed in China under the name of Hua-yen Buddhism.

The Hua-yen tradition was developed by a series of thinkers, most notably Fa-tsang (CE 643-712). Through him, it passed on to Korea and other East Asian countries, becoming known as 'Kegon' in Japan. Hua-yen is praised as the highest development of Chinese Buddhist thought. D.T. Suzuki called Hua-yen the philosophy of Zen, and Zen the meditation practice of Hua-yen. Francis Cook explains the core philosophy of Hua-yen as follows:

'Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.'

Rajiv Malhotra, Indra's Net

*

My Divine Mother

is the primordial Divine Energy.

She is omnipresent.

She is both the outside

and the inside of visible phenomena.

She is the parent of the world,

and the world carries Her in its heart.

She is the Spider

and the world is the web

She has spun.

The Spider draws the thread

out of Herself

and then winds it round Herself.

My Mother is at the same time

the container and the contained.

She is the shell,

but She is also the kernel

~ Sri Ramakrishna

*

My feelings of grief had become unbearable, and I attempted to pull off the road. But as suddenly as the wailing began, it ceased, and everything was transformed. Looking at the landscape around me through the window of my parked car, I wondered at first if I might be dreaming. Every rock, every sagebrush, every lofty pine and blazing aspen, as well as the mountain itself, was bathed in a yellowish-gold light connected to luminous threads. I felt as if I were enveloped in soft down.

"This is not a vision," I said to myself. "I am seeing the world as it really is!"

...The mysterious glow surrounding everything seemed to emanate from within all things...more accurately, perhaps, from within the earth, herself. The threads of light were even more extraordinary. Unlike the visible spectrum of light, these felt alive. It seemed that each strand of this "living light" was self-aware and also aware of the whole. I felt that I perceived, on an energetic level, the very essence of the earth - perhaps the nature of Creation itself. I also felt that for a brief, timeless moment, I perceived the "flow" of things, for these luminous threads of light seemed fluid, shimmering, and eternal. These threads of light were connected to all things, thus forming the impression of a vast living web. There were also strands, which extended upward as if connecting this web to some greater whole. Perhaps they reached into Infinity itself. My heartwrenching anguish had been transformed into utter bliss. It was then that I heard an inner voice telling me that one must know the sufferings of the world before bliss is possible... ...When my perception returned to normal, I thought of the Navaho deity, Spider Woman, who wove the web of the Universe. I remembered the opening verse to an ancient East Indian account of Creation, "Father, Mother, spin a web, whose web is the Universe".

I felt that my eyes had been opened. For the first time I understood what these ancient people must have known through direct experience. For the next half hour while standing on that mountain pass, I continued observing the glow of our world with its luminous threads. I knew that the goddess of our world had shared with me both her anguish and her bliss. Through a spontaneous shift in awareness, I had perceived her energetic configurations, while experiencing a joyous and ecstatic union with this great being - the Earth Mother - in her Gaia, or planetary, form.

- Peter Calhoun, "Soul On Fire: From Priest To Shaman"

***

Left: "Simbiosis", Ana Alvarez-Errecalde

[jhavelikes]

The full teaching is inconceivable— when you look into a single atom it appears all at once. The complete school is unfathomable— by observing a fine hair it is all equally revealed. Functions are separated in the essence, however, and are not without different patters; phenomena are manifest depending on noumenon and inherently have a unitary form. It is like this: when sickness occurs, medicine is developed; when delusion is born, knowledge is established. When the sickness is gone, the medicine is forgotten; it is like using an empty fist to stop a child's crying. When the mind is penetrated, phenomena are penetrated; empty space is adduced to represent universality. One awakened, once enlightened, what obstruction or penetration is there? The clinging of the hundred negations is stopped; the exaggeration and underestimation of the four propostions is ended. Thereby we find that medicine and sickness both disappear, quietude and confusion both melt and dissolve; it is thereby possible to enter the mysterious source, efface "nature" and "characteristics", and enter the realm of reality.

Hua-Yen Buddhism: Entry Into the Inconceivable

[astranemus]

It must be admitted that the traditional anthropocentric universe has begun to fade under the careful scrutiny of people who are not sentimentalists or who do not childishly seek security in baseless assumptions. A physicist, or a philosopher such as Whitehead, would have to admit that comfortable old concepts such as the distinction of subject and object, or that of agent and act, metaphysical entities such as souls and selves, or even more fundamental notions such as the absoluteness of time and space, are untenable in the light of objective and serious inquiry. The Western world is alive with new ideas, but so far these ideas have not trickled down to the mass consciousness. Most people still have a deep faith in solid substances and believe that their feelings, ideas, and even their own bodies belong to, or inhere in, some mysterious but seemingly irrefutable substance called a self.

Francis H. Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra

[zerogate]

A very simple and useful way to glimpse emptiness-usually defined in the Hua-yen scripture as emptiness of intrinsic nature or own being--is by considering things from different points of view.

What for one form of life is a waste product is for another form of life an essential nutrient; what is a predator for one species is prey to another. In this sense it can be seen that things do not have fixed, self-defined nature of their own; what they "are" depends upon the relationships in terms of which they are considered. Even if we say that something is the sum total of its possibilities, still we cannot point to a unique, intrinsic, self-defined nature that characterizes the thing in its very essence.

The same argument can be applied to space and time. In terms of our everyday perceptions, an atom is small; but in terms of the space between subatomic particles relative to the size of the parti­cles, we can say the atom is indeed enormous. In ordinary human terms, a day is short; but from the point of view of an insect that lives only a day it is as seventy years to a human or centuries to a tree. This perception of the relativity or non-absoluteness of mea­surements of time and space is frequently represented in the Hua­-yen scripture and is a key to unlocking the message of its "inconceiv­able" metaphors.

-- Thomas F. Cleary, Entry Into the Inconceivable -- An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism

[noosphe-re]

The doctrine of The Jewel Net of Indra forms the core of Hua-Yen Buddhism. It teaches that the cosmos is like an infinite network of glittering jewels, all different. In each one we can see the images of all the others reflected. Each image contains an image of all the other jewels; and also the image of the images of the images, and so ad infinitum. The myriad reflections within each jewel are the essence of the jewel itself, without which it does not exist. Thus, every part of the cosmos reflects, and brings into existence, every other part. Nothing can exist unless it enfolds within its essence the nature of everything else.

Richard Lubbock, Alfred North Whitehead: Philosopher for the Muddleheaded

[eelhound]

"According to the prevalent secular paradigm, biological evolution is the result of physical processes operating according to impersonal laws. It is a mechanistic model.

But what if, instead of reducing biology to physics and viewing the cosmos as a machine, we try to understand the physical universe according to a biological model — that is, as alive? As Joseph Campbell observed, 'If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.'...

So what other models are possible? Insofar as the universe constantly evolves new and more complex structures, is it better understood as an organism?

The different metaphors have very different implications. Machines can be disassembled into their components, cleaned, and after reassembly they work better than ever — but don't try that with an animal! That is because the various parts of a mechanism are lifeless in themselves but an organism is alive. And the components of an organism are better understood as organs.

This is more consistent with Indra's Net, a Mahayana metaphor that compares the cosmos to a multidimensional web with a jewel at each knot. Each of these jewels reflects all the others, and each of those reflections also reflects all the other reflections, ad infinitum. According to Francis Cook in Hua-Yen Buddhism, Indra's Net 'symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos.' Because the totality is a vast body of members each sustaining and defining all the others, 'the cosmos is, in short, a self-creating, self-maintaining, and self-defining organism.' In biological language, such a cosmos is self-organizing.

If the cosmos is a self-organizing organism, perhaps the earth too is something more than a place where we just happen to reside, more than a source of resources to be exploited as we like.

Does that also mean that our species is something more than the accidental product of random genetic mutation? An organ is a collection of tissues forming a structural unit that has a specific function within the larger organism. Are human beings an organ within the Great Organism? If so, what is our function?"

- David R. Loy, from Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis

[errantabbot]

On Buddhsim and Myth

When dealing with the creation narratives of the ancient world, I think WH Auden had much to offer:

“It is as meaningless to ask whether one believes or disbelieves in Aphrodite or Ares as to ask whether one believes in a character in a novel; one can only say that one finds them true or untrue to life. To believe in Aphrodite and Ares merely means that one believes that the poetic myths about them do justice to the forces of sex and aggression as human beings experience them in nature and in their own lives."

Myth is powerful, and functional narrative can be transformative, but apologetics is both dishonest and ahistorical.

The Buddhist tradition of having some unanswered/unanswerable questions is profound in my opinion. The Buddha saw questions about a creator deity, for instance, as distracting from the task at hand, which was first and foremost the mitigation of suffering, and alongside that, a simultaneously systematic and intuitive/experiential examination of the ground of being, that can yield total comfort with the language defying aspects of the nature of reality.

Myth can be powerful, but it can also be distracting in the least, and warping in the extreme. Exoteric creation myths belie our religious (in the Buddhist case) and current scientific understandings about the nature of reality and consciousness that show pretty clearly, as the Hua Yen Sutra puts it, “all things are created by mind and mind alone”. For this reason, despite the use they can have, Buddhism rejects creation myths.

~Sunyananda

[entheognosis]

“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net's every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite. The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mutual inter-causality.” -Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra

[captainmythoworld-blog]

The Buddhist nāga generally has the form of a large cobra-like snake, usually with a single head but sometimes pictured with a multiplicity. At least some of the nāgas are capable of using magic powers to transform themselves into a human semblance. Accordingly, in some Buddhist paintings, the nāga is portrayed as a human being with a snake or dragon extending over his head. In these anthropomorphic forms, cobra heads often spring from the neck. The Buddha is often shown conquering the nagas, probably a suggestion of his unsurpassed ability to overcome the natural world by way of his perfected virtues. Candidates for monkhood must also be able to tame their physical desires in a similar way if they wish to attain nirvana; accordingly, such candidates are called nag. Nāgas are believed to both live among the other minor dieties on Mount Sumeru, the central world-mountain of Buddhist cosmology deities, where they stand on guard against the malevolent asuras. Here they also assume the role servants to Virūpākṣa (Pāli: Virūpakkha), guardian of the western direction and one of the Four Heavenly Kings. Alternatively, Nagas are said to make their homes in various parts of the human-inhabited earth. Some of them are water-dwellers, living in rivers or the ocean; others are earth-dwellers, living in underground caverns, roots of trees, or in anthills, all of which are held to be thresholds leading to the underworld. Among the notable figures of Buddhist tradition related to nāgas are Mucalinda and Nagarjuna. Mucalinda, a naga king, is the protector of the Buddha, and in artistic and mythological illustrations he is commonly shown sheltering the post-nirvana Buddha from the elements by way of his many heads. According to tradition the Prajnaparamita teachings are held to have been conferred upon Nagarjuna by Nagaraja, the King of the nagas, who had been guarding them at the bottom of the ocean. Similarly, followers of the Chinese Hua-Yen tradition believe that Nagarjuna swam to the bottom of this great body of water and brought back the fundamental teachings (crystallized for this tradition in the Avatamsaka Sutra). #buddhism #nagas #buddha #nirvana #fantasyart #fantasy https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ff_kphjf3/?igshid=pgm5c69el0pm

[the-dewdrop-read-deep]

"The Hawk, the Swoop, and the Hare are One" - Gary Snyder on Radical Social Change

"There is nothing in human nature or the requirements of human social organization that requires a society to be contradictory, repressive, productive of violent and frustrated personalities." - Gary Snyder

There is nothing necessarily natural or inevitable, argues Gary Snyder, about repression, violence and frustrated personalities, and the more we are able to practice and connect with our deeper natures, the more apparent this becomes. Snyder’s vision for a more enlightened society stems from his conviction that the ‘joyous and voluntary poverty of Buddhism’ is an anathema to the mountains of junk…

[tactile-vedic-math]

“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.” Cook, Francis H. (1977), Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Penn State Press, ISBN 0-271-02190-X   Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra's_net

[litzebra]

The doctrine of The Jewel Net of Indra forms the core of Hua-Yen Buddhism. It teaches that the cosmos is like an infinite network of glittering jewels, all different. In each one we can see the images of all the others reflected. Each image contains an image of all the other jewels; and also the image of the images of the images, and so ad infinitum. The myriad reflections within each jewel are the essence of the jewel itself, without which it does not exist. Thus, every part of the cosmos reflects, and brings into existence, every other part. Nothing can exist unless it enfolds within its essence the nature of everything else." — RICHARD LUBBOCK, ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD: PHILOSOPHER FOR THE MUDDLEHEADED

[lenspenfromazenden]

Indra��s Net

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions.  In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.  There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold.  If we not arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number.  Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite

 The Avatamsaka Sutra

Francis H. Cook: Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra 1977

   One thing I appreciate about Buddhist fables is how some of them are so fantastic and otherworldly that the question of whether they ‘actually’ happened is clearly not what the story is about.  It isn’t centered on whether this net was literally infinite.  Once we suspend our disbelief about the heavenly abode, we can let the metaphor expand our view of our present reality.  What can Indra’s net tell us about how to live on earth?

 One way to interpret Indra’s net is how everything is reflected in each thing.  If you look closely at one action or one moment in your day, you will find a reflection of how you encounter your life.  The attention we pay toward making our bed is the attention we pay to folding laundry, is the way we wash our dishes, is the way we treat another human.

 Once we treat making the bed as, ‘it’s just a bed, I don’t need to worry about it too much’, it reinforces our idea of a bed as something in the way.  The bed is the way.  Sure, it’s important to get to work on time, and we can’t spend all day making sure our sheets are tucked in perfectly.  But if we keep rushing past one thing to get to the next, what’s the point?  There are infinite moments between waking up and arriving at work to appreciate.  They don’t seem like much now, but attention can turn the mundane into a jewel node of Indra’s net.

 It’s common to see chores as a necessary hassle of being human.  Even with all of today’s technology, there’s no getting around them.  Zen says our mode of ‘getting around them’ is a particularly pernicious mental habit.  Chores become things to serve our needs rather than an essential part of our precious life. The more we become fixated on the entertainment (or the drug, or the drink, or the TV show, or the whatever) the more the rest of our life becomes either a hassle or a lever to get back to our fixation.  Suffering has a cause, and that cause is attachment.

 So, Zen makes you do house chores.  Live at a Zen temple, and you’ll weed and sweep and cook and sew and sit and sleep and do it all again.  Instead of avoiding the tedium, Zen asks you to take it on directly.   And it’s not as if they have magical weeds to pull, or their brooms have mystical powers to send you into a state of transcendence.  Each moment at the temple is as valuable as this moment right now.  This ordinary home to a precious jewel at every node.

 In Indra’s net, we take a close look at the bed, and we see us reflected in it.  We take a close look at ourselves, and we see the bed too.  The self is not separate from the tedium; the tedium is not separate from the self. (there is no tedium; there is no self). The extent that we resist the tedium is the extent we resist our life, which isn’t a particularly fun way of doing things.  Wherever you are, whenever you are, take a closer look.  There is a jewel here.

[astranemus]

This matter of relationship is extremely important, and perhaps the most important difference between the Hua-yen view of things and the ordinary view is that people ordinarily think and experience in terms of distinct, separate entities, while Hua-yen conceives of experience primarily in terms of the relationships between these same entities. It is simply a question of fundamental, basic reality; is it separate parcels of matter (or mental objects) or is it relationship? It is interesting in this regard to see that a great number of Western physicists have now drawn the conclusion, based on the implication of Einstein’s theories, that relationship is the more fundamental. As one physicist remarked, if all the matter in the universe less one bundle of matter ceased to exist, the mass of the remaining parcel of matter (and hence its existence) would be reduced to nothing, the implication being that mass is a function of total environment and dependent on it. Nonetheless, in the seventh century, Fa-tsang and other Hua-yen masters taught that to exist in any sense at all means to exist in dependence on the other, which is infinite in number. Nothing exists truly in and of itself, but requires everything to be what it is.

Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra