Talk:Fazang

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This content appeared on a previous incarnation of this article that was redirected to a more common name. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 23:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Fa-tsang was the 3rd Patriarch of China's Hua-Yeng School. His dates are 643 CE and 712 CE. He was an adviser to Empress Wu and is popularly remembered for a series of dramatic demonstrations illustrating some of the more esoteric aspects of Hua-Yen doctrine and philosophy.

Fa-tsang is the third patriarch of the Hua-Yen school of Chinese Buddhism. His dates are 643 CE to 712 CE. He is popularly remembered for a series of dramatic demonstrations of estoric Hua-Yen doctrine and philosophy at the court of the Empress Wu

The Indian Avatamsaka Sutra is its central scripture. This school originated in China where the writings are known as the Huayan jing. It is known as Kegon in Japan and Hwaeom in Korea. The Avatamsaka's concluding chapter once circulated separately and was known as the Gandavyuha Sutra. Each of these designations is roughly equivilent to "Flower Garland" or "Flower Ornament."

Of this scripture D.T. Suzuki has written:

"The grand intuitions -- grand not only in scope and comprehensiveness but in penetration -- which make up the substance of the Gandavyuha, are the most imposing monument erected by the Indian mind to the spiritual life of mankind. 

Garma C.C. Chang further dilates:

"There is no other Buddhist scripture, to the best of my knowledge, that is superior to Hua-Yen in revealing the highest spiritual inspiration and the most profound mystery of Buddhahood. This opinion is shared, I believe, by the majority of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist scholars. It is small wonder that the Hua-Yen has been regarded as the "crown" of all Buddhist teaching, and as representing the consummation of the Buddhist insight and thought. 

Locale is demarcated by boundaries. The Hua-Yen school refers to this as the "Lokadhatu." A boundary is as close as your flesh or as distant as the farthest star. This enlargement of state or being is known as the "Dharmadhatu." The Hua-Yen perceives a world beyond definition without boundary. Paradoxically, their thinking sees each separate realm as interpentrating with every other. The everyday world they call the "Dharmadhatu of Shih." The universe as a whole is designated as "Li." The dialectic of the two is "The Dharmhadhatu of Shih and Shih." This vision is the internpenetration of any particular with any other particular and the universe as a whole is formulized as "Shih-shih-wu-ai." The inner causation and dependent coorgination of all time and space in any moment of locale of time and space is also termed "pratityasamutpada."

In playing with this concept it became evident that not only did one thing reflect another, "pratihasa" but each thing was fully present in the other, "vyapti." Each dharma is generally viewed in distinction but for the Hua-Yen each separate item in the universe was not only distinct but also radically the same, "samata." The universal purity of "amalacitta," is the ontologic principal of the Buddha pervading the universe. It is possessed or enters through any being we isolate by vitue of "anupravesu."

Any aspect of the Lokadhatu is shot through and through with the infinite. It can be seen as an effect of the entire agency of universal causation; as the efficient and originating cause of every effect to which we give time and placement.

One of Fa-stangs most famous disertations was a rumination on a mote of dust:

"When the dust is perceived, it is a manifestation of the mind at an instant. This manifestation of the mind for an instant is entirely the same as hundreds of thousands of infinitely longer periods.  Why? ... Because an instant has no substance, it penetrates the infinitely long periods, and because the periods have no substance, they are fully contained in a single instant... therefore in an instant of thought all facts and things in the three ages (past, present and future) are clearly seen... this dust is near and the world of the ten cardinal directions is far away.  But as the dust has no substance, it fully penetrates all the ten cardinal directions. In other words, the ten directions are all those of the dust.  Therefore the far is always near... as the ten directions enter into one particle of dust, they are always near although they are far, and as the dust universally pervades all the ten directions, it is always far although near. Think of it!" 

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Self-immolation?
The article casually mentions that in his early life, Fazang found solitude by engaging in self-immolation (which it describes as a Daoist practice). This has to be wrong because self-immolation, by definition, is always fatal.

I suspect the actual practice being referred to is probably either self-flagellation or some kind of fasting, not self-immolation. I’m guessing this article may have been translated from another language because there seem to be a lot of other idiosyncrasies like that (although none as blatant as this one). It definitely needs some attention. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:58A8 (talk) 23:06, 26 March 2023 (UTC)