Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Stegiel's avatar

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-phenomenal-universe-of-the-flower-ornament-sutra/. The Huayan worldview—which emphasizes interconnectedness and employs provocative holographic metaphors such as Indra’s Net—is a fascinating, illuminating resource that can be very useful to contemporary Buddhist practitioners, even though very few know much about it. It was hardly predominant in ancient times either. The major Huayan commentators were active in China for a relatively brief period—from the sixth to ninth centuries—and their profound, dense, and challenging writings were never widely read. Furthermore, the school they established in China never achieved any lengthy institutional prominence, and in Japan, Huayan barely survives formally today as the Kegon school. Nevertheless, Huayan—with its intricate dialectical philosophy—provides the philosophical underpinning for Zen and much of the rest of popular East Asian Buddhism and its offshoots in the West. As a result, Huayan perspectives, and the practical instructions that grow out of them, have an enduring influence and applicability to modern Buddhist practice.

Expand full comment

No posts