Chapter 6. The Huayan school¶

Tiantai's perfect interfusion of the dharmadhātu unfolds chiefly at the level of thought. Three thousand realms are present in a single thought, and the three truths are present simultaneously. Each present moment of mind radiates outward to embrace the whole. Huayan has a broader field of vision. Starting from the cosmology of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, it extends the insight that "all is one, and one is all" to the entire structure of existence. The discussion is no longer confined to thought. Everything in the universe reflects and includes every other thing. This is perfect interfusion in a cosmological sense, whereas Tiantai's version leans more toward epistemology and the theory of practice.

1. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra and Huayan's textual foundations¶

What is the Avataṃsaka Sūtra?

The Great Extensive Buddha Avataṃsaka Sūtra (Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Flower Garland Sūtra) is the most cosmologically imaginative scripture in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist literature. Its central image is the endlessly magnificent cosmic vista displayed at his awakening by Vairocana, the Dharma-body Buddha (the Great Sun Tathāgata). Layer upon layer of buddha-fields, countless buddhas, and countless bodhisattvas all mutually include one another without end.

Structurally, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra is not a unified Indian original. It is a vast collection assembled from several independent texts, the most important of which are the "Ten Stages" chapter (Daśabhūmika Sūtra, on the ten stages of bodhisattva practice) and the "Entering the Dharmadhātu" chapter (Gaṇḍavyūha, the young Sudhana's journey to visit fifty-three spiritual friends). These sections circulated independently in India before being compiled into a single great sūtra.¹

Chinese translations

The eighty-fascicle version is the one most used by the Huayan school and the version of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra most widely circulated today.

2. Huayan's historical origins¶

Du Shun (557–640)

Tradition regards Du Shun as Huayan's first patriarch. No extensive writings of his survive. A short text, Gates of Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu, bears his name, and he was known for teaching meditative contemplation. The text sets out three contemplations: contemplation of true emptiness (contemplating all dharmas as empty), contemplation of the nonobstruction of principle and phenomena (contemplating their mutual identity), and contemplation of universal pervasion and inclusion (contemplating the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon). The text no longer survives as an independent work. It is preserved in full in Chengguan's Mysterious Mirror of the Huayan Dharmadhātu and in Zongmi's Commentary on the Huayan Gates of Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu; this book quotes it from these two commentaries.² These three gates of contemplation correspond to the four dharmadhātus later established by Chengguan, as explained in Section 3.

Zhiyan (602–668)

A disciple of Du Shun and Huayan's second patriarch, Zhiyan was the first to undertake a systematic intellectual exposition of Huayan doctrine. His Ten Mysterious Gates of the Huayan One Vehicle establishes the list of ten gates. A note beneath its title reads "transmitted from the teachings of Master Du Shun," tracing the list back to Du Shun.³ His other principal writings are the Record of Searching the Profound Meaning of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra and the Miscellaneous Chapters on Points of Doctrine, Including the Internal Divisions of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra.

Fazang (643–712)

Fazang, also known as "Master Xianshou," was Huayan's third patriarch and the person who built Huayan thought into a complete philosophical system. Of Sogdian descent, he was born in Chang'an and had an exceptionally close relationship with Wu Zetian (r. 690–705). Wu was Huayan's most important political patron. Fazang lectured on the sūtras at court on numerous occasions, providing religious resources for her use of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra to establish the legitimacy of her rule.⁴

Fazang's principal works include the Record of Exploring the Profound Meaning of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Essay on the Divisions of the Teachings of the Huayan One Vehicle (commonly called the Essay on the Five Teachings, the outline of his classification of teachings), the Huayan Essay on the Golden Lion (a short essay using a golden lion as its analogy, written for Wu Zetian), and the Essay on Dependent Origination of the Dharmadhātu. The Record of Exploring the Profound comments on the sixty-fascicle Avataṃsaka. Fascicle 16 explains the "Nature-origination of the Jewel King Tathāgata" chapter, using its title in the old translation. The same chapter is retitled "The Appearance of the Tathāgata" in the eighty-fascicle version. The major commentaries on the latter are by Chengguan, discussed below. The Commentary on the Meaning of the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna must also be added to this list. The textual basis of the theory of nature-origination is the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna. Fazang wrote a commentary on it and placed it at the summit of the Final Teaching. Chapter 5 of Essay 22 in Part II of this book compares this commentary with the Record of Exploring the Profound.⁵

Chengguan (738–839)

Chengguan was Huayan's fourth patriarch and the principal commentator on Huayan doctrine after Fazang's death. The major commentaries on the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka are his: the Commentary on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra and the Subcommentary Expanding the Meaning of the Commentary. He also wrote the Mysterious Mirror of the Huayan Dharmadhātu, which quotes and explains Du Shun's three gates of contemplation. The list of four dharmadhātus appears at the beginning of this work (see Section 3).

Zongmi (780–841)

Huayan's fifth patriarch and an important successor in the Heze lineage of Chan, Zongmi explicitly sought to synthesize Huayan and Chan (see Section 9). His principal works include the General Preface to the Collected Explanations of the Source of Chan and the Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity.

3. The four dharmadhātus as the basic framework of Huayan ontology¶

The four dharmadhātus constitute Huayan's most basic ontological framework. Chengguan lists them at the beginning of the Mysterious Mirror of the Huayan Dharmadhātu, pairing them with Du Shun's three gates of contemplation. Contemplation of true emptiness contemplates the dharmadhātu of principle; contemplation of the nonobstruction of principle and phenomena contemplates the dharmadhātu of the nonobstruction of principle and phenomena; and contemplation of universal pervasion and inclusion contemplates the dharmadhātu of the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon.⁶ The Mysterious Mirror explains why there are only three contemplations but four dharmadhātus. The dharmadhātu of phenomena is "difficult to set out in all its separate particulars." Every individual phenomenon can become an object of contemplation, so this contemplation is omitted from the list; the entire dharmadhātu of phenomena instead serves as the basis of the three contemplations.⁶ The four dharmadhātus and what they designate are listed below.

The first three dharmadhātus have counterparts, to varying degrees, in other Buddhist philosophies. The dharmadhātu of phenomena corresponds to conventional truth, the dharmadhātu of principle to ultimate truth, and the nonobstruction of principle and phenomena to Madhyamaka's concurrent operation of the two truths.

The fourth dharmadhātu is Huayan's distinctive contribution. The claim that things mutually include one another without any obstruction, "the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon," is Huayan philosophy's most radical assertion. The mechanism by which it arises is set out in the first two gates of the contemplation of universal pervasion and inclusion in the Gates of Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu. Phenomena do not differ from principle, so they pervade wherever principle pervades, "thereby allowing a single mote of dust to pervade the dharmadhātu." All phenomena are alike in being one principle, so they mutually inhabit and include one another.⁷ Every step passes through principle; there is no direct route from one phenomenon to another. The entire weight of this derivation therefore rests on the status of principle. If principle occupies the place of a rule, the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon is a description of relations pushed to its limit. If principle is read as an entity behind phenomena, the entire fourth dharmadhātu inherits the old charge of substantialism. The original text's statement that "principle is empty and has no substance" bars the latter reading. A world in a grain of sand; a universe in a flower.

4. The perfect interfusion of the six characteristics¶

The perfect interfusion of the six characteristics (liù xiāng yuánróng, Six Characteristics) is an analytical framework developed by Zhiyan and systematically expounded by Fazang. It explains how every phenomenon simultaneously possesses six characteristics that oppose yet perfectly interfuse with one another. They form three pairs of mutually inclusive characteristics.

All six characteristics are simultaneously present in any phenomenon. Their "perfect interfusion" is what matters. They are not opposed contradictions but different aspects of the same phenomenon, mutually identical and all indispensable. The philosophical significance of their perfect interfusion is that it explains how "one" and "many" coexist in the same phenomenon. It is also one of the logical foundations of "the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon."

5. The ten mysterious gates and Indra's net¶

The ten mysterious gates

The ten mysterious gates set out the workings of the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon; each gate explains one aspect of phenomena's mutual inclusion. The work that establishes the list is Zhiyan's Ten Mysterious Gates of the Huayan One Vehicle, with the note "transmitted from the teachings of Master Du Shun" beneath its title.³ Fazang's Essay on the Five Teachings retains this old list and expounds its workings anew, while his Record of Exploring the Profound establishes a new list. Both circulate under his name.⁸ The list changes substantively in two places. The gate of the complete virtues of purity and mixture in the various repositories is replaced by the gate of the freedom and nonobstruction of the broad and the narrow; the gate of transformation through mind alone and skillful accomplishment is replaced by the gate of the perfect illumination and complete virtues of principal and companions.⁸ The significance of the latter change is that the old gate of transformation through mind alone attributes the workings of all the preceding nine gates to what is "established by the pure true mind, the nature of the tathāgatagarbha." After Fazang revised the list, no gate among the ten was named in terms of mind.³

The details of the ten mysteries are rather technical, so only their spirit will be explained here. Each gate describes a particular relation of mutual identity between "one" and "many." One is in many, and many in one; the small contains the large, and the large the small; this time contains that time, and that time this time; a thought contains an eon, and an eon a thought… The ten gates explain the same reality of "the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon" from ten different angles.

Indra's net

Indra's net (Indrajāla, the net of the celestial sovereign) is the most famous image for this grammar. It already gives its name to the second gate of the old ten mysteries, and Zhiyan explains it through the mutual reflection of many mirrors.³

An endless net of jewels hangs over Indra's palace, with a jewel at every knot. Each jewel reflects all the others; and every reflected jewel in turn reflects all the others… The reflections overlap endlessly, without a final point.

The analogy makes the realm of "the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon" intuitively visible. Each thing (each jewel) reflects all other things (all the other jewels) within itself; and those reflected things in turn each contain reflections of all the others. Layer upon layer, without end.

In Chapter 5.1, the chapter on the Middle Treatise, this book already used Indra's net as a source of intuition for dependent origination and emptiness. Within the Huayan framework, the analogy is developed more fully into a cosmology. A gap within the analogy must nevertheless be noted. What the jewels contain are reflections. Images' mutual inclusion belongs to the level of representation, whereas mutual identity and interpenetration make claims at the level of existence. The burden of argument rests with the following exercise of counting ten coins, rather than with this analogy.

Counting ten coins

The mechanics of mutual identity and interpenetration are set out in the section on counting ten coins. Fascicle 4 of the Essay on the Five Teachings demonstrates them with ten coins, numbered one through ten. It first distinguishes two approaches, shared essence and different essences, then distinguishes two operations, emptiness and existence, and force and absence of force. Mutual identity follows from emptiness and existence; interpenetration follows from force and absence of force.⁹ Mutual identity allows only one term at a time to occupy the position of essence. If one term exists, the other must be empty; since the other has no intrinsic nature and is constituted by the first, the other is the first. Interpenetration, at the position of function, alternates between a full allocation and a zero allocation. The term with all the force includes the other; the term with no force enters the first.⁹ An affirmative argument is also provided. If one were not identical with ten, a number of ones could not add up to ten. If ten could not be constituted, one too would lose its counterpart. Fazang closes by asking, "If there is no ten, whose one is it?"⁹

A condition governs these operations. Fazang repeatedly states that mutual identity and interpenetration depend entirely on the absence of intrinsic nature. He says that "the one spoken of is not a one with intrinsic nature" and that "only through the absence of intrinsic nature can the dependent origination of one and many be constituted." The strongest statement identifies the failure: "If this were not so, dependent origination would not be constituted, and there would be such faults as intrinsic nature."⁹ In this operating manual, intrinsic nature is a state of failure. If any term holds fast to its own essence, the two actions of yielding its place and acting in another's stead immediately become impossible, and dependent origination fails with them. Huayan's architect wrote the absence of intrinsic nature into the conditions under which his own apparatus operates. The use of this provision will become clear in Section 11.

6. Dependent origination of the dharmadhātu and the theory of nature-origination¶

Dependent origination of the dharmadhātu

In early Buddhism, dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is a linear causal chain. Because this arises, that arises; because this ceases, that ceases. In Madhyamaka, it supplies the argumentative basis for "the absence of intrinsic nature." In Huayan, it expands into "dependent origination of the dharmadhātu" (dharmadhātu-pratītyasamutpāda). A linear causal chain becomes the simultaneous mutual inclusion of all phenomena. Every phenomenon depends on all other phenomena as its conditions, while also being included in all of them. This is "horizontal" interdependence, rather than a "vertical" temporal sequence of causation.

The theory of nature-origination

Nature-origination is Huayan's doctrinal name for the tathāgatagarbha line of thought. Explaining the title of the "Nature-origination of the Jewel King Tathāgata" chapter, fascicle 16 of the Record of Exploring the Profound defines it as "Not changing is called nature; manifesting function is called origination." Nature does not change; origination manifests function.¹⁰

The gate of definition among the Record of Exploring the Profound's ten gates concerning doctrinal purport gives a direct explanation of this point. Fazang poses a question himself. The sūtra explicitly says that "perfect awakening is not accomplished through few causes and conditions." If causes and conditions are involved, why speak only of nature-origination? He offers four meanings. The third has the most decisive wording: "Although origination gathers conditions, conditions necessarily have no intrinsic nature. The principle of the absence of intrinsic nature manifests where conditions are present. Thus, with reference to manifestation, it is called only nature-origination."¹⁰ In this sentence, "nature" designates the principle of the absence of intrinsic nature; nature-origination is the manifestation of that principle where conditions are present. The same thing is called dependent origination when viewed from the side of conditions and nature-origination when viewed from the side of the principle manifested. Principle adds no further thing.¹¹

The consequences differ greatly depending on whether "origination" is fixed as manifestation or as production. Manifestation requires no producer in addition to the bearer; production does. In this gate, Fazang chooses manifestation. Pure nature therefore need not serve as the producer of all dharmas.

The difference between nature-origination and inherent inclusion

Chapter 10.5 has already identified the central difference. The following table supplements that account.

Conventional accounts often go a step further here, saying that Huayan speaks only of purity and does not include defilement. There is no basis for that step in Fazang's own text. In the gate of defilement and purity, the Record of Exploring the Profound asks whether sentient beings and afflictions are nature-origination. The answer is "all are." The reasons given are that they are what is to be saved, severed, and known, concluding: "Therefore there is nothing at all that is not nature-origination."¹⁰ The same gate also offers the analogy of turning a boot upside down and wearing it as a hat. It says of defiled dharmas: "Because they run counter to the true, they cannot be apart from the true; because they run counter to the true, they do not belong to its true functioning."¹⁰ A boot worn on the head is still a boot, and thus is not apart from the boot; wearing it on the head does not count as a boot's use, and thus does not belong to its true functioning.

The divergence between the two schools must therefore be stated more precisely. The dispute is not over whether nature-origination includes defilement. Both schools include defilement; they disagree over whether it counts as a virtue of nature. Tiantai counts evil among nature's contents, hence its theory of inherent evil. Huayan lists defilement as an object to be counteracted, allowing it no place among nature's contents. The difference concerns the breadth of two registers.

Huayan's theory of nature-origination follows the main line of the tathāgatagarbha tradition, which holds that nature is pure and defilement belongs to delusion. Tiantai's theory of inherent inclusion revises that line. Its revision focuses precisely on whether evil is entered in nature's register.

7. The Huayan Essay on the Golden Lion¶

The Huayan Essay on the Golden Lion is a short text Fazang wrote for Wu Zetian. It uses a cast-gold lion in the palace to illustrate the central concepts of Huayan philosophy and offers the most approachable introduction to Huayan thought.⁴

The analogy works as follows.

Gold = principle (dharma-nature, emptiness). Gold is the actual substance, the material of which the lion is made. Gold itself has no fixed shape and can be cast into any form.

The lion's shape = phenomena. The lion's specific features, including its claws, teeth, ears, and eyes, are the forms into which the gold has been cast. Each part has a particular appearance (particularity), but every part is gold (sameness).

The relation between gold and lion: gold is entirely lion (gold is lion; principle is phenomena), and lion is entirely gold (lion is gold; phenomena are principle). This is the nonobstruction of principle and phenomena. Each claw and tooth contains the whole lion (the relation between totality and particularity in the perfect interfusion of the six characteristics); the whole lion is in every claw and tooth. This is the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon.

The essay closes with the final gate, entering nirvāṇa. What it does there is withdraw the analogy, rather than extend it to the entire dharmadhātu. Its wording is "see that the two characteristics of lion and gold are both exhausted." Gold, as well as the lion, is exhausted.¹² Throughout the essay, gold represents suchness, and each successive explanation relies on the substance of gold. The final gate withdraws the analogy's underlying substance along with everything else. The closing passage itself dismantles the last possible foothold within the text for reading gold as an enduring material substrate.

8. The five teachings, ten schools, and the rank of tathāgatagarbha¶

Fazang's classification of teachings establishes two axes. The Essay on the Five Teachings opens with a division into five teachings. The axis of teachings begins with the Hīnayāna Teaching and proceeds through the Mahāyāna Initial Teaching, Final Teaching, Sudden Teaching, and Perfect Teaching. The last defines itself as the "distinct teaching of the One Vehicle."¹³ Fazang's criterion for the boundary between the Initial and Final Teachings centers precisely on tathāgatagarbha. Teachings whose account of the principle of emptiness is incomplete are classed as Initial; those that "concern the wondrous scriptures on the permanence of the tathāgatagarbha" are classed as Final.¹³ Alongside the axis of teachings is an axis of schools, "distinguishing schools according to principle," with ten schools. The eighth is the school of the nonemptiness of true virtues, referring to the scriptures of the Final Teaching. Its position is that "All dharmas are nothing but suchness," because it "has its own substance" and "possesses the virtues of nature." The tenth is the school of perfect illumination and complete virtues, referring to the distinct teaching of the One Vehicle.¹⁴

On both axes, tathāgatagarbha ranks below Huayan's own position. On the axis of teachings, tathāgatagarbha scriptures are assigned to the Final Teaching, the third rank, while Huayan assigns itself to the Perfect Teaching, the fifth. On the axis of schools, the nonemptiness of true virtues ranks eighth and perfect illumination and complete virtues ranks tenth. The gap is two ranks on each axis. In its own texts classifying teachings, Huayan treats tathāgatagarbha as a level it has already surpassed.

The equation "Huayan = tathāgatagarbha" must therefore be broken down. Textual inheritance certainly exists. The textual basis of nature-origination is the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna. Fazang wrote a Commentary on the Meaning of it and placed it at the summit of the Final Teaching. The equation quoted from the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra in Chapter 7.1, "the tathāgatagarbha is the unconditioned dharmadhātu," is indeed one source of dependent origination of the dharmadhātu. Inheritance does not imply equal rank. The positions assigned in texts classifying teachings are one matter; whether Huayan's principle is, doctrinally, the kind of unified essence behind all phenomena posited by tathāgatagarbha is another.

The Gates of Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu itself makes two statements about the status of principle within this framework. The first gate of the contemplation of the nonobstruction of principle and phenomena discusses principle pervading phenomena: "In each and every phenomenon, principle pervades in its entirety, not in part," because "that true principle cannot be divided." Any material can be divided; distribute it among different places, and each receives a portion. To assert that something is indivisible yet wholly present everywhere is to assert that it does not obey the arithmetic of material. A rule is precisely such a thing. Wherever it applies, it applies in full; there is no question of half a rule applying. The seventh gate, true principle is phenomena, is more direct. The statement "phenomena necessarily depend on principle" is immediately followed by "because principle is empty and has no substance." This principle is realized entirely by being phenomena in its entirety.⁷ A principle with no substance cannot serve as a foundation behind all phenomena. Reading principle as a unified essence finds no foothold in those four Chinese characters, 理虛無體.

The contemplation of true emptiness in Du Shun's Gates of Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu contemplates the emptiness of the dharmadhātu. Chengguan's four dharmadhātus place the dharmadhātu of principle second and the dharmadhātu of the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon at the summit. This structure inherits the cosmological concerns of the tathāgatagarbha tradition but uses the language of emptiness. The Mysterious Mirror explains true emptiness as "neither annihilatory emptiness nor emptiness apart from form." Emptiness is disclosed in existence itself.⁶ Huayan rewrites the question "What is the relation between all dharmas and inherent nature?" as "How do all dharmas mutually include one another?" After this rewriting, principle serves as a condition, rather than a source.

The conclusion must therefore change direction. In its classification of teachings, Huayan demotes tathāgatagarbha; in its doctrine, it rewrites it. The demotion appears in the ranks on the two axes, and the rewriting in fixing "origination" as manifestation and placing "principle" on the side of rules. The equation in Chapter 7.1 still holds. It gives the lineage of Huayan's dependent origination of the dharmadhātu, rather than the definition of Huayan's dharmadhātu of principle.

9. Zongmi's attempt to synthesize Huayan and Chan¶

Zongmi (780–841) was both Huayan's fifth patriarch and an important successor in the Heze lineage of Chan, the lineage of Shenhui. His principal lifelong undertaking was to show that Huayan philosophy and Chan practice were two aspects of the same thing.

General Preface to the Collected Explanations of the Source of Chan

The work systematically classifies the Chan schools of Zongmi's time, including Heze, Hongzhou/Mazu, and Niutou. Using Huayan's framework for classifying teachings, he arranges the Chan schools into different levels, ultimately arguing that the highest Chan and Huayan's Perfect Teaching point to the same reality.

Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity

Zongmi's Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity is one of the most intellectually original works in the history of Chinese Buddhism. It asks what a human being is. He answers in turn from Confucian, Daoist, and various Buddhist positions, identifying the shortcomings of each. He ultimately argues that only Huayan's tathāgatagarbha theory can fully answer the question "What is the essence of humanity?" The human essence is the manifestation of tathāgatagarbha, or the inherent nature of the dharmadhātu, in sentient beings.

Zongmi's attempted synthesis had limited influence on later generations. Zongmi died in 841, before the Huichang persecution of 845, and Huayan subsequently produced no synthetic thinker comparable to him. His framework for classifying teachings and his synthetic vision nevertheless influenced the development of Song discourse on "the unity of the three teachings."

10. Historical influence¶

In China

Huayan's independent sectarian transmission in China largely ended after the Huichang persecution (845). Its philosophy was too abstract, lacking both a practical point of entry like Chan's and a devotional appeal like Pure Land's. Yet Huayan philosophy diffused through the broader tradition of Chinese philosophy.

"Principle" in the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming has a clear intellectual affinity with Huayan's "principle" (dharma-nature). The basic proposition of the school of Cheng and Zhu, that "principle is one, its particularizations diverse," is structurally very similar to Huayan's framework of "one principle" pervading "the myriad phenomena," although the school of Cheng and Zhu does not acknowledge Buddhist influence.

In Chan, particularly in the later collections of koans, the formula "all is one, and one is all" resounds with echoes of Huayan.

In Korea

Wonhyo (617–686) and Uisang (625–702) brought Huayan thought to Korea. The Hwaeom school became the most important Buddhist school during the Silla period (668–935). Uisang studied directly with Fazang's teacher Zhiyan. After returning to Korea, he founded Korean Hwaeom and came to occupy a pivotal place in Korean Buddhist history.

In Japan

Huayan reached Japan in the eighth century as Kegon, one of the six Nara schools. Its center is Tōdai-ji in Nara, with its famous Great Buddha Hall and Great Buddha of Nara, a bronze statue of Vairocana.

11. This book's philosophical assessment¶

Huayan is Chinese philosophy's distinctive contribution to cosmology. "The nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon," the mutual inclusion of all phenomena without obstruction, is a distinctive formulation in world philosophy. It is difficult to find an exact counterpart in Indian philosophy, even in Mahāyāna. This is a distinctive cosmology developed in China after assimilating several Indian traditions, including tathāgatagarbha, Madhyamaka, and Yogācāra.

The derivation of the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon rests on counting ten coins, rather than on Indra's net. Indra's net is an intuitive image: jewels reflecting jewels, layer upon endless layer. The analogy supplies a picture, and what the jewels contain are reflections. A gap separates images' mutual inclusion from mutual identity and interpenetration at the level of existence. The argument is supplied by the counting of ten coins in fascicle 4 of the Essay on the Five Teachings. Mutual identity is attached to emptiness and existence at the level of essence; interpenetration is attached to force and absence of force at the level of function. Each connective has its own scope. The affirmative reasoning that one is ten is completed through relations of mutual dependence such as "If there is no ten, whose one is it?" as already set out in Section 5. The contemplation of universal pervasion and inclusion in the Gates of Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu also explains the derivation of the nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon itself. Because phenomena do not differ from principle, they pervade as principle does; because all phenomena are alike in being one principle, they mutually include one another. Every step passes through principle. There is therefore no gap here that leaps directly from analogy to ontology. There is a chain of derivation whose entire load rests on the status of principle.

Fazang fixes the "origination" in nature-origination as manifestation. The third meaning in the Record of Exploring the Profound's gate of definition defines the term: "Although origination gathers conditions, conditions necessarily have no intrinsic nature. The principle of the absence of intrinsic nature manifests where conditions are present. Thus, with reference to manifestation, it is called only nature-origination." Manifestation requires no producer in addition to the bearer, as already explained in Section 6. Defiled dharmas are not excluded either. The gate of defilement and purity asks whether sentient beings and afflictions are nature-origination. The answer is "all are," because they are what is to be saved, severed, and known.¹⁰ Huayan answers the old question raised in Chapter 7.2, how pure nature can become lost in delusion, by placing defilement in the position of what is to be counteracted, with no place for it in nature's register. The answer deals with registration; it does not deal with genesis.

The Tiantai charge of "contemplating principle and severing the nine realms" does not hold against Fazang's foundational texts. Zhili's Notes on the Essentials of the Ten Gates of Nonduality accuses Huayan of speaking only of nature-origination, not inherent inclusion. If the principle contemplated is solely pure, the defilement of the nine realms has no place within nature, and buddhahood can be reached only by first severing the nine realms. Checking Fazang's original text reveals that what is to be severed is delusive conditions; sentient beings and afflictions are classified as nature-origination; and buddha-nature and nature-origination "universally pervade the nonsentient." The nature of the nine realms has not been sentenced to death. The charge holds on the side of reception history, and Zhili himself identifies its target: "Guifeng alone uses the term numinous knowing."¹⁵

The real opening Huayan leaves exposed concerns whether suchness can be perfumed. The chapter on perfuming in the Awakening of Faith gives suchness both positions. It is perfumed by ignorance and can also perfume ignorance. By contrast, the Cheng weishi lun's four criteria for what receives perfuming and four for what perfumes explicitly exclude unconditioned dharmas from both positions. Its reason is that unconditioned dharmas are firm and impervious to perfuming; moreover, they "do not change from before to after and have no function of generating or increasing," so cannot do the perfuming.¹⁶ The two parties place the same word, "perfuming," at different levels. If it is seriously read as a mechanism, suchness must have a changeable aspect. If it merely expresses a relation of dependence, the bidirectional structure of the Awakening of Faith's chapter on perfuming loses its concrete referent. One of these two must be chosen. Fazang did not choose, and this book will not choose for him.

Zongmi's ambition to synthesize reveals Huayan's possibilities and limitations. Huayan philosophy's grand framework makes it naturally suited to serve as "the ultimate integrative framework." Zongmi attempted to use it to integrate Chan and Huayan; the Neo-Confucianism of Cheng and Zhu unconsciously drew on it to integrate Confucianism with Buddhism and Daoism.

This book's position is that Huayan's systematic scope and subtlety have no rival in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Its commitments are also the weightiest. The role of principle, nature-origination, and the entire network of the dharmadhātu are each major undertakings. Matching them is the density of the clauses by which it limits itself. The Gates of Contemplation says that "principle is empty and has no substance"; the Essay on the Five Teachings says that "if this were not so, dependent origination would not be constituted"; and the explanatory commentary on the Essay on the Golden Lion says that "gold represents suchness, which does not hold fast to its own nature." The weightier the commitments, the denser the restrictions the texts themselves impose. This is the proportion most worth remembering when reading Huayan literature in full.

Huayan's tension with Madhyamaka does not have the same structure as tathāgatagarbha's. Essay 7 discussed the tension between tathāgatagarbha and Madhyamaka. Tathāgatagarbha places a certain pure reality at the center, while Madhyamaka's emptiness is thoroughly negative and recognizes no positive substantial existence. Huayan's position is different. It advances "all dharmas perfectly interfuse with one another; one is all" as a positive description, and this indeed goes further than Madhyamaka. Yet Fazang explicitly makes the absence of intrinsic nature a condition for the operations supporting this step. The moment intrinsic nature enters, mutual identity and interpenetration cease to work. Madhyamaka's theorem says that intrinsic nature and dependent origination cannot coexist; the Essay on the Five Teachings states an engineering version of the same proposition. The real distance lies elsewhere. To get from "mutual connection" to "mutual inclusion," Huayan uses principle's universal pervasion and nondifference. This derivation can be checked step by step, and its validity depends on the status of principle. If principle occupies the place of a rule, each step conforms to it; if principle is read as an entity, the entire level must be reexamined.

The distance from Buddhism's original concern. This book has repeatedly identified early Buddhism's concerns since Essay 1 as the Four Noble Truths, not-self, and dependent origination. Its aim is the cessation of suffering and escape from saṃsāra, and it uses an experiential diagnostic framework. Huayan travels a long way from this starting point to "one mind includes all dharmas in the universe." A ready verdict is that this path leads ever closer to the Brahmanical doctrine of brahman and ātman. Checked sentence by sentence against the original texts in Essay 22 in Part II of this book, that verdict cannot be sustained. At the heart of the doctrine of brahman and ātman is an omnipresent and permanent entity. The texts on Huayan's foundational side expressly reject this commitment. All four alternatives concerning suchness are answered "no"; following conditions and remaining unchanged "have only two meanings, not two substances"; principle "is empty and has no substance"; and one is "not a one with intrinsic nature."¹³ These statements all come from Fazang himself and the Gates of Contemplation on which he relied.

The distance can actually be measured in two respects. The first lies in the shift of questions. Early teachings deal with the cessation of suffering; Huayan deals with the structure of the dharmadhātu. The latter neither follows from nor is required by the former. The second lies in reception history. Chengguan establishes "knowing" alongside nature, saying that "knowing is the essence of mind," and draws the boundary between sentient and nonsentient by its being "different from wood and stone." Zongmi goes further, saying that "All sentient beings possess the true mind of original awakening" and that this mind "has abided permanently in purity from beginningless time, luminously undimmed, clearly and constantly knowing."¹⁷ From Fazang's universal pervasion of the nonsentient, through Chengguan's narrowing, to Zongmi's single true numinous nature, the wording changes three times over three generations, always in the same direction. Nature moves from a common characteristic to the essence of mind; permanence moves from permanence that does not differ from impermanence to permanent and unchanging abiding. A reading in terms of permanence and omnipresence did indeed appear. It appeared in the reception history of commentaries and classifications of teachings, rather than in Fazang's foundational texts.

This book's final assessment of Huayan must therefore be recorded on two sides. The foundational side holds its ground. Its provisions run through gates of contemplation, doctrinal essays, and commentaries. Fazang and the Gates of Contemplation on which he relied refuse to describe principle, suchness, or one as a self-standing, self-sufficient substance. The nonobstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon is the product of a description of relations pushed to its limit. The side of interpretation does not hold its ground. From Chengguan onward, commentaries describe nature as the essence of mind and permanence as permanent, unchanging abiding. This drift can be traced generation by generation. The distance between Huayan and early Buddhism must therefore be entered under both the shift of questions and the drift in reception history. It is not entered as an ontological transgression; checked against the original texts, that entry does not hold.

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