Transcript Buddhism 4 (Huayen)

Buddhism in China: Hua-yen
Berger
Intro to Asian Religions
The Establishment of Chinese
Buddhism
The legendary dream of emperor Ming (58-75) in 64 CE
 Three Kingdoms period (220-589) leads to Buddhist
popularity in both the “foreign” north and “native” south
 Confucian objection to Buddhism’s anti-family social
order and other-worldly tendencies answered by Muo Tzu
(4th century)
 Translation teams bring Buddhist scriptures to China,
making liberal use of Daoist religious vocabulary
 Imperial patronage under Tang Dynasty (618-906)

The Rise of Hua Yen (華厳)
Translation of Avatamsaka sutra in 420
 Institutionalization of school by Ta Shun (557-640)
 Philosophical system made by Fa tsang (643-712)

Defeated doctrines of other schools in the imperial court of
Empress Wu Tze Tian (625-705)
 Empress Wu patronizes Hua-yen to legitimate rule

School practically obliterated in persecutions of Emperor
Wu Tsung (842-845).
 Hua Yen school taken to Japan in 736 and established as
major Buddhist institution, Kegon

Teachings of Fa-tsang’s
Hua-Yen Treatise I
 The
six characteristics (p. 503)
 “Universality”
–a whole entity
 “Particularity” –unique qualities of an entity
 “Identity” –the union of qualities in making an entity
 “Difference” –the uniqueness of each quality
 “Integration” –the capacity of unique qualities to give
rise, co-dependently, to entities
 “Disintegration” –-preservation of the unique
differences of each quality within an entity
Teachings of Fa-tsang’s
Hua-Yen Treatise II
 Universals
 A rafter
in rafter-building illustration (504-05)
is the building since it creates a building
 Each rafter is a total condition of building’s existence,
since, were any rafter to be removed, the universal
which is that building would cease to exist
 The building is not an independent entity, it is only the
dependently co-arisen union of its parts
Teachings of Fa-tsang’s
Hua-Yen Treatise III
 Particulars
 Parts
and the identity of part and whole (505)
of a whole, as rafters of a building, are only parts
depending on their contribution to construction of a
whole.
 Part is identical with whole, for the part creates that
whole and not something else. Were there no rafters,
there would be no building, and with no building, there
would be no rafters
Teachings of Fa-tsang’s
Hua-Yen Treatise IV
 Conditions
of the existence of a whole, its parts,
are identical with one another, as are rafters and
tiles, insofar as they function identically to create
building (506)
 Parts remain physically themselves and thus
different from one another, as the rafter and tiles,
else they could not construct the building (506)
Teachings of Fa-tsang’s
Hua-Yen Treatise V
 The
One-Many relation as key to wisdom (507)
 The
unity of one in many and many in one is a
realization of “wonderful integration”
 Picture of dependent co-arising is positive insight into
creativity and necessity of each individual to the whole
universe
 Insight into one-many relationship is how the world
appears to an enlightened mind
Reading for Next Class
 Sourcebook,
508-517