The Flower Ornament Scripture

by Thomas Cleary

  Among the qualities that constitute the reality-body of Buddhas in the sense of a universal spiritual body which all Buddhas develop are what are called the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, and the eighteen unique qualities of Buddhas. The ten powers, which are powers of knowledge, are especially frequently mentioned.

  The ten powers are defined as knowledge of what is so and what is not so, knowledge of the deeds of beings and the consequences of those deeds, knowledge of all states of meditation, concentration, and liberation, knowledge of the faculties of others, knowledge of the inclinations and understandings of beings, knowledge of the characters of beings, knowledge of where all paths lead, knowledge of past lives, clairvoyance, and knowledge of having extirpated all contaminations from the mind. These may be enumerated and defined in somewhat different ways in different Buddhist literature. The “beings” known to the Buddhas may of course be understood as the various conditions of human beings, though not necessarily limited thereto. The ten powers of knowledge of Buddhas are considered vestigial or latent powers in all humans, and some of them may be more or less developed in individuals. Some of these powers can be awakened and cultivated to some extent through awareness and attention in everyday life, while access to some psychic powers is possible only through intense meditation. Knowledge of past and future may be usefully understood as profound understanding of causes and effects, insight into psychological, social, and other developmental processes over a span of time; this type of knowledge is said to include, however, capacities of recollection and reception that generally remain undeveloped and unknown to ordinary people. In Buddhism it is accepted that intuitive knowledge and direct perception can be awakened and can do what discursive knowledge cannot do, so the operation of certain psychic powers is not accessible to conceptual knowledge.

  The four fearlessnesses of Buddhas are the fearlessness of omniscience, the fearlessness of having put an end to all mental contamination, fearlessness in explaining things which hinder enlightenment, and fearlessness in explaining ways to end suffering. Fearlessness here means that the Buddha’s knowledge is certain and free from doubt and hesitation. The meanings of omniscience or universal knowledge, which underlie fearlessness, will be taken up along with consideration of the so-called body of knowledge of Buddhas.

  The eighteen unique qualities of Buddhas are: freedom from error; freedom from clamor; freedom from forgetfulness; freedom from distraction or fragmentation of mind; freedom from the notion of manifoldness; conscious equanimity; no loss of will; no loss of energy; no loss of memory; no loss of concentration; no loss of wisdom; no loss of liberation; no loss of knowledge and insight of liberation; always acting in accord with knowledge and wisdom; always speaking in accord with knowledge and wisdom; always thinking in accord with knowledge and wisdom; unimpeded knowledge of the past; and unimpeded knowledge of the present.

  Buddhas’ body of knowledge, in its broadest sense, may be said to contain all knowledge, and in the scripture innumerable spheres of knowledge are mentioned. Overall, however, the body of knowledge is often defined in terms of four kinds of knowledge, from which all other proceed. The first knowledge is called the mirrorlike knowledge, or great round mirror. Clear, nondistorting, nondiscursive awareness is likened to a mirror that reflects things objectively and impartially, without discrimination or attachment. This is also called the mind’s aspect of true thusness. Next is knowledge of equality, of the equal nature of all things, referring to the relativity and inherent emptiness of phenomena. Knowing the essential emptiness of things is also referred to as universal knowledge or general omniscience. The third Buddha-knowledge is called subtle observing or analytic knowledge; this is knowledge of particulars, knowledge of characteristics and differentiation. While knowledge of equality deals with the “emptiness” side of the relativity = emptiness equation, analytic knowledge deals with the “relativity” side. Together they realize the mutual noninterference of equality and distinction, forming, with the underlying mirrorlike knowledge, the basis for the fourth Buddha-knowledge, called the knowledge of practical accomplishment. This refers to acting in the world, in harmony with essential emptiness-equality and with concrete conditions.

  Omniscience, or all-knowledge, or universal knowledge, is said to be of three types. One is the aforementioned general aspect of omniscience, which refers to knowledge of emptiness. Beyond this is knowledge of modes of the path, which is knowledge of types of people and various means whereby they may be liberated. The former knowledge is common to saints, self-enlightened ones, and enlightening beings, while the latter is in the realm of enlightening beings. The consummate omniscience of Buddhas, containing the ten powers, is knowledge of all particulars of causality and the overall and specific means of enlightenment.

  Considering the matter of the scripture’s frequent references to the Buddha’s innumerable “spiritual” or “mystic” powers being revealed everywhere, from the point of view of the scripture, all things, all beings, mind, and space itself are bodies of Buddha, so the miracle of awareness and existence—the ultimate causes of which are beyond the power of conception to grasp—are “miracles” of Buddha. They are constantly edifying in the sense that, as the scripture says, all things are always teaching. The miraculous transformation performed by the Buddha for the enlightenment of sentient beings is, from this perspective, the shifting of the mental outlook to experiencing everything as a learning situation. This vision of life as a whole as the scene of enlightenment is one of the major themes of The Flower Ornament Scripture, and is a basic meaning of the statement that there is ultimately only one vehicle of enlightenment.

  Mention of the doctrine of “only mind” may be called for to clarify statements in the scripture to the effect that all things are creations of mind. This does not mean creation in the sense of creating something out of nothing. This doctrine means that practically speaking the world only “exists” as such because of our awareness, and that what we take to be the world in itself is our experience and inference based thereon. The conceptual order which is taken to be characteristic of objective reality is, according to this doctrine, a projection of the mind, a description that filters and shapes experience in accord with mental habits developed throughout the history of the species, the civilization, and the individual. Techniques of visualization, meditation, concentration, and trance are used in part to detach the mind from fixation on a given conceptual and perceptual order through cultivation of other ways of perceiving and conceiving, and through experience of other spheres, which are equally real to the senses. By mastering attention and realizing the relativity of world and mind through actual experience as well as reasoning, one may then gain freedom while in the midst of the world, having, as scripture says, mastered mind rather than being mastered by it.

  In Huayan Buddhism, the school whose philosophy is based on The Flower Ornament Scripture, the cosmos, or realm of reality, is a central idea, one which may be used to clarify certain features of the scripture. The cosmos, as the term is used here, includes the entirety of conventional (mundane) and absolute (transcendental) reality. The term from which the notion of cosmos or reality realm derives (Sanskrit: dharmadhatu) can be used to refer to phenomena, individually or collectively, to universes as defined by certain laws or states, to realms of existence and principles defined by the teachings of Buddhism, and also to the realm of nirvana. The Chinese philosophers of the Huayan school distinguished four general reality-realms in which everything, the cosmos, is included: the realm of phenomena, the realm of noumenon, the realm of noninterference or integration of noumenon and phenomena, and the realm of mutual noninterference among phenomena.

  The realm of phenomena refers to all things and events. The realm of noumenon refers to the essence of things in themselves, the principle of voidness or emptiness—the lack of inherent nature or intrinsic reality in conditional, dependent things. The realm of mutual noninterference of noumenon and phenomena means that since phenomena are produc
ts of causes and are interdependent and have no absolute individual existence, therefore they are all empty or void of intrinsic nature. Hence their conditional existence does not interfere with their absolute emptiness, and vice versa. Their interdependent existence and emptiness of own being are two sides of the same coin. The realm of noninterference among phenomena is based on the same principle: whatever their apparent differences, phenomena are the same in the sense of being dependent and hence void of absolute identity. The noumenal nature, or emptiness, of one phenomenon, being the same as that of all phenomena, is said to at once pervade and contain all phenomena; and as this is true of one, so it is true of all. Furthermore, the interdependence of phenomena means that ultimately one depends on all and all depend on one, whether immediately or remotely; therefore, the existence of all is considered an intrinsic part of the existence of one, and vice versa.

  The realms of noninterference between noumenon and phenomena and noninterference among phenomena are represented symbolically in The Flower Ornament Scripture by such images as Buddha’s pores each containing innumerable lands, with each atom in those lands also containing innumerable lands, each land containing innumerable Buddhas, and so on, ad infinitum. This illustrates the infinite mutual interrelation of all things. The principle of all things reflecting or “containing” one another is also symbolized by the so-called “Net of Indra,” which is an imaginary net of jewels that reflect each other with the reflections of each jewel containing reflections of all the jewels, ad infinitum.

  A further illustration of the principle of interdependence and interrelation is afforded by the formation of assemblies in the scripture. To give a simplified example, let us take a group of one hundred individuals: singling out one, we could say this individual is surrounded or accompanied by ninety-nine people; adding the totality of the ninety-nine, the group, as one more (a typical Huayan accounting method based on the interdependence of individuals and sets), this means one individual is accompanied by one hundred. In the same way each individual may be selected as the focus and considered to be accompanied by one hundred. Hence there are a hundred people each accompanied by a hundred people: viewed as discrete individuals, there are only one hundred, but seen in terms of their interrelation there are basically ten thousand, and this latter figure could be multiplied indefinitely to account for complex relations. All beings and phenomena, being relative, are looked upon in this way in Huayan philosophy: based on the same principle, a person or thing may be seen as multiple when considered in terms of relationships, being in a sense a different person or thing in terms of each different relationship. In reference to the enlightening being, who consciously adopts different guises and deals with people in different ways, this is represented as multiplication of the body of projection of myriad different bodies.

  Like many popular Buddhist scriptures, The Flower Ornament Scripture is rich in imagery and symbolism. While certain images may at times be taken literally, there are numerous specific symbolic connotations assigned to particular items in the text of the scripture itself as well as in traditional exegesis. Some consideration of the metaphorical language of the scripture is therefore called for to gain access to the inner meanings.

  At various points throughout the text are elaborate descriptions of a multitude of adornments. In general, these symbolize virtues, teachings, and also qualities of the world as perceived by a pure mind. The term virtue is often used in the scripture in a very broad sense to include all beneficial and liberating acts as well as wholesome qualities, spiritual faculties, and powers of knowledge.

  Jewels and precious substances symbolize enlightening teachings; their variety represents the multitude of doctrines expounded by enlightening beings and Buddhas in adapting to different situations and audiences. Rain is also used as a metaphor for teaching; showering rains of all manner of jewels and ornaments and other beautiful things refers to the exposition of many principles and teachings.

  Flowers may be used to represent the mind or mental factors or states, particularly the development of wholesome qualities and the unfolding of knowledge. Flowers are also used to symbolize practices employed to further spiritual evolution, and fruits symbolize the results of those practices.

  Canopies or parasols represent protection from afflictions, inclusion in a sphere of activity or enlightenment, compassion, breadth of mind, and universality of knowledge.

  Seats, thrones, and residences represent spiritual states, stability, or spheres of awareness and action.

  Banners and pennants stand for virtues, outward manifestations of qualities or realizations, excellences of character; they also stand for symbolism and representation in general.

  Personal ornaments such as garlands and jewelry represent virtues, knowledge, skills, or cultivation of one’s faculties.

  Oceans and clouds represent clusters or groups. Oceans are also used to symbolize immensity, depth, immeasureability.

  Light symbolizes knowledge or awareness; variegated light represents differentiating knowledge, different kinds of knowledge, or knowledge of different spheres. Lights, particularly jewel lights, also can represent the experience of a certain kind of meditation in which the attention is focused only on colors, not on things as usually conceived; the colors seen in this kind of concentration are called jewel lights. While fire can be used to represent passion and afflictions, flames are also used to represent wisdom, the destruction of ignorance and folly; lamps and torches are associated with light and flames, representing awareness, knowledge, and wisdom.

  Buddha-lands, or buddha-fields, have several levels of meaning. They are spheres of enlightenment, or spheres of action of Buddhas; they may be thought of as actual lands with inhabitants, as communities or societies, or as spheres of awareness. Each realm of sense is a buddha-land, and so is every particle of matter. A human being can be looked upon as a buddha-land of sight, a buddha-land of hearing, a buddha-land of taste, a buddha-land of smell, a buddha-land of feeling, and a buddha-land of thought. As a unit of measurement, a buddha-land or buddha-field is represented as a universe or system of a billion worlds.

  1. Thomas Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1983).

  APPENDIX 2

  Amplifications of Book 39

  Appendix 2

  There are a number of passages, some quite long, to be found in Prajna’s forty-scroll translation of the Gandavyuha, which are not in either of the earlier Chinese translations, nor in the Sanskrit original. It is probably fair to assume, therefore, that these are additions made by Prajna or his committee of assistants. Indeed, some of them appear to be of the nature of explanations of or amplifications on the text; some seem to go off a bit excessively on tangents. The following excerpts present a selection of those additions which seemed in my opinion to be worth translating.—THOMAS CLEARY

  Instructions of Muktaka

  The accumulation of illusions from action is called mind; intellect thinks and assesses, and the ideational consciousness discriminates. The five sense consciousnesses discern the differences in objects. Ignorant people are unable to realize this, so they fear old age, sickness, and death, and seek nirvana. They do not know either birth and death or nirvana, and create arbitrary and false notions about objects. Also, the ignorant think that the future perishing of objects of sense from the faculties is nirvana. When buddhas and enlightening beings themselves realize enlightenment, they overturn the repository consciousness and realize the knowledge of basic awareness. All ordinary ignorant people misunderstand the Buddha’s expedient means and cling to the existence of Three Vehicles. They do not realize that the world is produced from mind and do not know that all elements of buddhahood are the direct experience of one’s own mind. They see sense data without and cling to them as really existing. Just like oxen or goats, they are unable to wake up and know, so they have no way to escape the whirl of birth and death.

  Buddhas say that all t
hings have no origin or extinction, no past, present, or future. Why? Because as one’s own mind manifests sense data, objects fundamentally have no existence; because all things, existent or not, have no origin and are like the horns of a rabbit. The realm of sages’ own enlightenment is like this. The ignorant arbitrarily create false ideas, taking the nonexistent as existing and the existent as not existing. They grasp the various manifestations of action of the repository consciousness and fall into the two views of origin and extinction. Not understanding their own minds, they create false notions.

  Instructions of Shilpabhijna