The twenty-seventh book, The Ten Concentrations, speaks of the enlightening being breaking through the barriers of the familiar relative world—barriers of space, time, multiplicity, solidity—by mental concentration. One aspect of this practice is the entry and exit of concentration in different domains. “Entry” is interpreted as concentration, or absorption, and “exit” as insight, or knowledge; through concentration in one domain, insight into another is awakened. This is done through numerous different mediums of concentration and is connected with the development of the Flower Ornament vision of the interpretation of principles and phenomena and the interpenetration of phenomena.
Other exercises are also presented, embedded within the imagery and descriptive narrative of the book, structured to foster the fundamental perspectives of the teaching and to guide the mental focus of development of the general and specific aspects of comprehensive knowledge for which the enlightening being strives. One characteristic of such exercises is their telescopic quality, visualizing simultaneous extension and immanence.
The Flower Ornament Scripture is like a hologram, the whole concentrated in all the parts, this very structure reflecting a fundamental doctrine of the scripture, that this is what the cosmos itself is like, everything interreflecting, the one and the many interpenetrating. In the book on the ten stages this is illustrated with the gradual mode of teaching predominant; in the book on the ten concentrations this is shown with the sudden or all-at-once mode coming strongly to the fore, paralleling the step-by-step format. Were its method unlocked, ancient research into the mental cosmos, such as reflected in The Flower Ornament Scripture, might have something to offer to modern investigations into the holographic nature of the brain and its linear and simultaneous modes.
An essential theme of the ten concentrations is the purpose of knowledge in the context of the life of enlightening beings; specifically, understanding the processes of development of civilizations and mentalities, and how the cycles of teaching operate in the context of these processes and their various elements.
Book twenty-eight, on the ten superknowledges, describes higher faculties, functions developed through the concentrations, said to be inconceivable to any minds except those of the fully awakened and the awakening who have attained them.
The twenty-ninth book, on the ten acceptances, deals with entry into nonconventional aspects of reality. The boundaries of conventional mental construction are penetrated but not destroyed because their ultimately illusory nature is realized. Transcendental and mundane levels of truth are both accepted: the immanence of the absolute in the relative is experienced as all-pervasive, spiritual phenomena and mundane phenomena being found to have the same phantasmagorical nature; thus the ultimate tolerance is attained whereby the mind is freed.
Book thirty, called “The Incalculable,” develops the immense numbers used in the scripture. The higher numbers far exceed present estimations of the number of atoms in the universe; they are more closely approached by the numbers of potential brain operations. The Flower Ornament method of calculation includes the dimension of time as well as space, and follows the principles expounded in the scripture—for example, since everything is a series of moments, continually passing away and being renewed, each moment therefore is a new universe; also, the content of each passing moment of awareness is a universe. Furthermore, all existents are what they are in relation to all other existents; thus, in terms of the “Indra’s Net” view of the Flower Ornament, the facets of existence are incalculable, interreflecting ad infinitum. This is illustrated by the progression of squares by which the incalculable numbers are developed in this book. The book concludes with a verse declaring that the cosmos is unutterably infinite, and hence so is the total scope and detail of knowledge and activity of enlightenment.
“Life Span,” the thirty-first book, presents a similar progressive generation of time frames in different “worlds,” culminating in the frame of reference of the prototype of enlightening beings, in which “a day and a night” is an inconceivably immense span of time in ordinary terrestrial terms, yet is still within time. Here again is illustrated the interpenetration of cosmic and mundane planes in the perspective of the enlightening being.
Book thirty-two, called “Dwelling Places of Enlightening Beings,” names centers of spiritual activity, some of which can be located in India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central and East Asian China. Whatever the historical facts behind this book may be, commentary takes it to represent the manifestations of the timeless and placeless “reality body” within time and place.
Whereas book thirty-two represents buddhas in the causal state as enlightening beings in specific domains, the thirty-third book, “Inconceivable Qualities of Buddhas,” deals with buddhas in the state of effect or realization, the universal attributes of buddhas. Here the “buddhas” represent attunement to the cosmic buddha, the “reality-body.” The former chapter alluded to the causal state, which is there to promote effect; the present book shows how the state of effect then extends forward into cause. Thus the Flower Ornament doctrine of interpenetration of cause and effect—cause producing effect, effect producing cause—is illustrated; this is one meaning of representing the Teaching as a wheel that continually moves forward.
Book thirty-four contains a long series of visualizations. Called “The Ocean of Physical Marks of the Ten Bodies of Buddha,” it also presents the state of effect or realization, in terms of comprehensive awareness, represented by multitudes of pervasive lights revealing the phenomena of the material and spiritual worlds. “The Qualities of the Buddha’s Embellishments and Lights,” the thirty-fifth book, presented as spoken by Shakyamuni-Vairocana Buddha in person, refers to the causal state, that is, to the Buddha as an enlightening being, illustrating the light of awakening penetrating, breaking through, the veils of the realm of ignorance.
These expositions of the qualities of buddhahood, generally showing the emanation of the universal principles of buddhahood from the state of effect into the state of cause, are followed by the thirty-sixth book called “The Practice of Universal Good,” again taking up the cycle of cause to effect. Narrated by Samantabhadra, the Universally Good enlightening being, the prototype and representation of the whole body of the practical acts of enlightening beings, this book is followed by “the appearance of Buddha,” in which Samantabhadra goes on at length describing the myriad facets of the manifestation of Buddha and how it is to be perceived.
The final two books of The Flower Ornament Scripture, “Detachment from the World” and “Entry into the Realm of Reality,” deal with the development of the enlightening being. “Detachment from the World,” which commentary points out has the meaning of transcendence while in the very midst of the world, is a series of two thousand answers to two hundred questions about various aspects of the evolution of enlightening beings into buddhas.
“Entering the realm of reality,” the final book of The Flower Ornament Scripture, is perhaps the grandest drama of the Buddhist canon. Known in Sanskrit as an individual scripture called Gandavyuha, this book describes the development of enlightenment through tales of a pilgrimage. The central character, a seeker of truth named Sudhana, is sent on a journey by Manjushri, the personification of wisdom. Initially directed by Manjushri, Sudhana calls on a number of spiritual guides, each of whom sends him on to another for further enlightenment. Eventually Sudhana comes to the abode of Maitreya, the imminent Buddha, and finally integrates with the total being of Samantabhadra, the representation of Universal Good, the activity of enlightenment.
The guides Sudhana encounters, referred to as spiritual benefactors or friends, are young and old, female and male, Buddhist and nonBuddhist, renunciates and householders, members of various classes, and experts in various professions, arts, and sciences. They are not organized in a perceptible formal hierarchy or institution and are not always known to the public for what they are. The spiritual friends are known to each other according to the
ir own attainments, and it is through the successive direction of the guides themselves that Sudhana finds out who and where they are. None of them claims to hold the whole truth, and none tries to bind Sudhana to a given system of dogma or keep him as a follower. Many of them teach in surroundings and formats that are not overtly associated with what is conventionally thought of as religion.
The book begins with a symbolic description of manifestations of enlightened awareness, explaining that those who are within a fixed system have not the slightest inkling of the scope of consciousness that lies beyond the bounds of their perceptions as conditioned by their training and development. It suggests that all views that are conditioned by cultural and personal history are by definition limiting, and there is a potential awareness that cuts through the boundaries imposed by conventional description based on accumulated mental habit. According to the scripture, it is the perennial task of certain people, by virtue of their own development, to assist others in overcoming arbitrary restrictions of consciousness so as to awaken to the full potential of mind.
In order to carry out this task, it is necessary to operate partly within the field of these very restrictions. Those whose specific charge it was to write scriptures like this one, therefore, were working within the bounds of language and thought to hint at realities beyond language and thought. As has been seen in earlier books of the scripture, included in the commitments of such specially dedicated people, known here as enlightening beings, is the task of purposely bridging boundaries of culture and religion. They are also committed to bridge the boundary of secular and sacred, and part of their work involves relieving mundane suffering and anxieties that would otherwise preoccupy mental energy and hinder further awakening.
Given that the specific characters of the scripture are “fictional,” the teaching indicates that in order to seek historical reflections of what the characters represent, it would be necessary to avoid being constrained by labels and definitions imposed by externalist observers. The secrecy or inaccessibility of certain aspects of spiritual teaching is due not merely to esotericism but also to the extent to which the realm and activity of the teaching is outside the system of assumptions and expectations of common convention.
Seen in this light, the scripture can foster remarkable perspectives on the history of civilization and human consciousness. Even in recorded history, there are numerous examples of people known as mystics who were also eminently practical, workers in the fields of public education, civil administration, medicine, engineering, environmental design, communications, agriculture, and so on. On the other hand, it is widely stated that many overtly religious people were in fact unregenerate worldlings; it is also on record, though less widely, that many overtly secular activities and enterprises are in fact vehicles of spiritual teaching. Given that a complete historical record is a physical impossibility, and that there is no such thing as a complete fact in itself available to the ordinary senses, it is interesting to observe how much apparently disconnected activity can be brought into coherent focus through the vision of the Flower Ornament Scripture.
Who were—who are—these specially dedicated and developed people whom the scripture calls enlightening beings? We have no reason to suppose that all enlightening beings are identified as such in historical records; there is more reason to suggest that their identities have in many cases been deliberately obscured. The scripture says of them:
Some appeared in the form of mendicants, some in the form of priests, some in bodies adorned head to foot with particular emblematic signs, some in the forms of scholars, scientists, doctors; some in the form of merchants, some in the form of ascetics, some in the form of entertainers, some in the form of pietists, some in the form of bearers of all kinds of arts and crafts—they were seen to have come, in their various forms, to all villages, cities, towns, communities, districts, and nations. With mastery of proper timing, proceeding according to the time, by modification of adapted forms and appearances, modifications of tone, language, deportment, situation, carrying out the practices of enlightening beings, which are like the cosmic network of all worlds and illumine the spheres of all practical arts, are lamps shedding light on the knowledge of all beings, are arrays of projections of all realities, radiate the light of all truths, purify the establishment of vehicles of liberation in all places, and light up the spheres of all truths, they were seen to have come to all villages, towns, cities, districts, and nations, for the purpose of leading people to perfection.
This depicts the enlightening beings coming into the world, as it were, with a purpose, using the available tools of the world to accomplish their task. The versatility of enlightening beings in their modification of appearance and activity, adapting to the specific circumstances of the time—cultural, linguistic, technological, and so on—and the needs of the people they are working with, stems from a basic freedom enlightening beings cultivate, which is sometimes referred to as being beyond the world even while in the world:
Enlightening beings do not seek omniscience for their own sake, nor to produce mundane enjoyments and pleasures, nor in search of the various enjoyments of the realm of desire, not under the compulsion of errors of conception, thought, and view. They live and work in the world without being controlled by fetters, bonds, propensities, or obsessions, without being controlled by craving or opinions, without their minds being bound up in ideas of mundane enjoyments, without being taken with the taste of pleasure of meditation, without being blocked by mental barriers.
Of course, this does not mean to say that enlightening beings all exist in conformity with stereotyped ideals. According to the scripture, the wisdom and virtues of Buddha are in all people, but people are unaware of it because of their preoccupations. Just as the scripture points out that there are lands and beings who are a mixture of impurity and purity, there are untold incipient enlightening beings always becoming manifest in every thought, word, and deed of compassion. It is the task of the more fully developed enlightening beings in every community to contact and nurture what is best in others; whether they do it through religion or art or cooperation in ordinary activities is purely a matter of local expediency. Often it is the case that preoccupation with the external face of such activity obscures its inner purpose; over a period of time this leads to elaboration of forms without their original meaning, fragmentation of the work, and mutual misunderstanding and even intolerance and hostility among members of what have now become factions. One of the functions of The Flower Ornament Scripture is to present a vision of the whole underlying the parts, so as to help people offset the effects of this scattering tendency and rise above sectarianism and other forms of bigotry.
It is no secret, of course, that there have been numbers of overtly religious figures, religious leaders, who fit descriptions of enlightening beings. The potential unleashed by their appearance, however, has often been mitigated by two persistent tendencies manifested by particular types of observers. One tendency has been to absolutize even the temporal aspects of the dispensations of such leaders; the other has been to regard such people solely as products of temporal conditions. To offset the extreme view that abstracts a personality out of context, The Flower Ornament Scripture sometimes represents such people as kings surrounded by their retinues, showing that the activity of the teaching, which may be overtly represented by an individual, is in reality sustained by many people, who may be anonymous, and that the position and work of the king takes place within a particular context, in cooperation with a community. To counter the other extreme view of such leaders as merely the products of historical forces, the scripture uses the theme of reincarnation, depicting them as being reborn again and again in different states and circumstances, carrying out their transcendental purpose, which remains with them throughout all changes, using the means afforded by the temporal order.
Thus, while the scripture lauds the extraordinary achievements of specially dedicated individuals, it does so primarily as an inspirat
ion to the inner sense of the potential of consciousness, and does not degenerate into personality worship or cultism. Though it recognizes the ordinarily imperative force of actions and events that continually condition the stream of existence, it also emphasizes the power of will, often referred to in terms of vows, capable of extending the awareness to reach out for latent possibilities that are not being actualized within a given set of propensities but that can become available through the exercises known as the practices of enlightening beings.
Naturally, many perceptions of the “meaning” of the scripture are possible, according to the history and condition of the interpreter. This is noted in the scripture itself and is a basic understanding of the school of hermeneutics founded on this scripture in the Far East. Each of these perceptions will have some meaning (even if it is thought of as “meaninglessness”) to the perceiver, and probably to others as well, as in the case of people sharing their experience of anything, whether it is a verbalized, conceptualized, and reflective experience or an intuitive, tacitly communicative one. Whether or not particular perceptions are useful to an individual in a developmental sense is another matter; but even if they are not enlightening to the individual perceiver, they may be useful to others who observe the relation of the individual with the material. The scripture carries out its function of illustrating mentalities both directed by description and indirectly by provocation.
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