Toronto Huayen Study Group

"The Jewel Net of Indra- Chapter 2: Group Summary  -- Personal Comments"

Angela

This is my first time with the Hua-Yen study group. I find the discussion very inspiring and very interactive. I enjoyed the interaction with other members and shared our understanding and reflection on Buddhism based on the assigned reading. As the book says about Hua-Yen philosophy of Buddhism, everyone is interconnected and interdependent of one another. It made me more aware of my own actions, thoughts, and words. I am also more aware of how I impact others through my own actions,thoughts and words. I am looking forward our next meeting.

 Grace

What is so fascinating about Huayen Buddhism is its concept of “Totality”, the interconnectedness and the
interdependency of everything in the entire cosmos.

It is said that it is the state and experience of the complete and supreme enlightened being, it is as well the
process of transformation and elevation of the human consciousness andawareness.

In light of the current state of our society and the world, would Huayen Teachings be well serve as the road map for humanity to peruse peace, freedom, equality and harmony as we explore the rest of the chapters in the book?

Mel    

I was most enthused to learn that Hua Yen evolved over a few hundred from the origins of Indian Buddhism.  It was the 3rdPatriarch Fa Tsang whose teachings developed into deep philosophical thought based on the Avatamsaka Sutra which was translated by Buddhabhadra from Sanskrit to Chinese.

The Hua Yen School taught that the Avatamsaka was there to show the prime concern of Buddhism is to show man
(mankind) what he must do to become free and what freedom is, in spite of it being a work of ‘excruciating detail.

It was only by the time of the 4th patriarch Ch’eng –Kuan in the 7th century the school of teaching was given the name of Hua Yen.

Hua yen is not a distinct or separate body of thought and teaching but that it under the early patriarchs ‘accomplished the mission of effecting the union of Buddhist philosophic schools. Hua Yen is Ch’an, is Pure Land and became the philosophic base for Chinese Buddhist thought since it embodies some indigenous Taoist and Confusian
thought.

Hua Yen as a school did no flourish as the other schools of Buddhism because of it’s deep philosophical content the
Emperor Wu felt threatened by it’s intellengensia persecuted the school most viciously causing it to lose much of it’s vitality. Consequently, having survived it is smaller than the other schools which are non-philosophical and more driven by practice than thought.

Some of the essence of Hua Yen thought are the ’interdependence origination of the universe’, ’he totalistic view of existence’, ‘the interconnectedness of all things’ – the Jewel Net of Indra, ‘everything needs everything else’.

Mingyang

1. The power of a good example is huge. It can influence others in a way beyond your imagination. We need to be those good examples by standing up first.

2. The conflict between us and others is because of us not others. We or our mind are the one causing the trouble. If we try to see things by pointing fingers to ourselves, there aren't many conflicts around us.

3. A question: how do we increase our consiciousness in our daily life.

4. The self grows as a baby grows up. In order for our mind to go back to the baby stage, the understanding of the inter-connection between self and others under huayen framework plays a fundermental role in de-conditioning our polluted or contamined mind.

5. The ignorance is one of the reasons for those young boys being the suicide bombers.

6. Darma exists everywhere including western society. To help westerners realize the darma is our big mission.  But how?

Keith

Group members are genuinely opening up to the possibilities of Huayen philosophy through their sharing of what this
philosophy means to them in their daily lives. I really liked the idea of learning to be more conscious in our daily lives, and how we can do this. It's the hardest thing about Buddhist teaching in general: when our minds are always grasping at possibilities, how it can be more still and simply take in what is actually present, like an empty cup. 

Without practice in awareness, it's very hard to undo the conditioning that says one way is "right" while the other is somehow incorrect. Growing up, most people fear disapproval, whether from their parents or from their friends, and
carry that sense with them everywhere they go. What's the most difficult is that Buddhist practitioners try to adapt to the society they are in, which arises from their compassion toward sentient beings and need to harmonize with
all people and leave peacefully with everyone. Yet, the Buddhist practitioner must also somehow maintain his or her practice and beliefs in the face of that pressure to conform to the predominant social beliefs and values. This being
said, I would find it difficult to imagine how a Buddhist would be able to retain their practice in a more fundamentalist culture.           

One group member had mentioned the scientist Stephen Hawking, and how much of what he is describing about the unity of the cosmos has already been codified in the Huayen sutras and text over 2000 years ago. I would be interested to read more about the findings of modern physics and do a "comparison" with the Buddhist teachings; perhaps something worth doing when I am better versed in Huayen philosophy. 

I also liked the later discussion about the family gathered around the dinner table, with only some getting a complete dinner. It was a call to compassion that comes from the heart and does not get attached to any kind of thought. But more and more I am getting this sense of the fear that those people must have felt before someone stood up and started distributing the food portions equally among everyone. I can't put my finger on what that fear is, but
probably when we are assigned something, we identify with it and say "that is me"; then someone else's things becomes "theirs" and we are told not to touch what isn't ours.  So the fear is almost like, if I give something to someone, where will "I" be? If I receive something, is it "theirs" or is it "mine"?

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