Writings of Nichiren Shonin Doctrine 2, pp. 38-39, 43-51, 64-66

Kaimokusho or Liberation from Blindness, pp. 19-20, 26-37, 57-59

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin I, pp. 227-228, 231-238, 248-249

It may come as a surprise to some that Nichiren praises the Flower Garland Sutra so extravagantly in the Kaimoku Sho. Of course, his rhetorical strategy is to build up the Flower Garland Sutra so that when he points out that the Lotus Sutra is even more profound the latter assertion will have even more impact. Basically he is saying, “If you think the Flower Garland Sutra is great, and in many respects it is, then you will be even more impressed by the Lotus Sutra.” Another reason for his praise of the Flower Garland Sutra is because Nichiren sees it as containing all the best aspects of the sutras other than the Lotus Sutra (according to the T’ien-t’ai system of the five flavors or periods). If the Lotus Sutra, in teaching the obtainment of buddhahood by the two vehicles and the attainment of buddhahood in the remote past, surpasses the Flower Garland Sutra, than it certainly surpasses all other sutras. Before moving on to the teaching of the attainment of buddhahood in the remotest past, lets take a closer look at the Flower Garland Sutra. Why does Nichiren praise it? And what teachings does the Flower Garland School based upon it convey that are a part of the common heritage of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism, including Nichiren Buddhism?

As is evident in Kaimoku Sho, Nichiren believes that the Flower Garland Sutra expresses the Buddha’s vision of perfect and complete awakening beneath the Bodhi Tree. The sutra, after all, begins, “Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was in the land of Magadha, in a state of purity, at the site of awakening, having just realized true awareness.” (Cleary 1993, p. 55 slightly modified) The scene of the Buddha’s awakening is soon transformed into the Hall of Awakening and the Buddha becomes the cosmic Vairochana Buddha of the Lotus Repository World, while the teachings are given by a host of celestial bodhisattvas led by Dharma Wisdom. Though considered the first teaching of the Buddha, it is really more of a record of visionary transformations and teachings witnessed by Shakyamuni Buddha as he sat beneath the Bodhi Tree immediately after his perfect and complete awakening.

According to the T’ien-t’ai system, the Flower Garland period of the Buddha’s teachings is the Sudden method of teaching and conveys the Distinct and Perfect teachings for advanced bodhisattvas. In fact, as Nichiren points out in Kaimoku Sho, Shakyamuni Buddha does not actually teach anything in the Flower Garland Sutra. Rather, advanced bodhisattvas such as Dharma Wisdom and numerous others are the ones who actually teach the Dharma. Nichiren even says that until the Buddha taught the Lotus Sutra, he did not actually teach anything was not derived from the teachings of Dharma Wisdom and the other bodhisattvas. Nichiren even goes so far as to say that in the Flower Garland Sutra and all the other sutras prior to the Lotus Sutra the Buddha was the student and Dharma Wisdom and the other bodhisattvas were the teachers.

Therefore, during the time when the pre-Lotus sutras were preached Lord Shakyamuni was not the teacher who revealed what others did not know, but he was rather a student of such bodhisattvas as Dharma Wisdom. Likewise, it is said in the first chapter on the “Introduction” of the Lotus Sutra that Bodhisattva Manjushri was a teacher of Shakyamuni Buddha for nine generations. In various sutras preached before the Lotus the Buddha is quoted as having said that he, ‘never preached even one word.’ It means that his preaching did not go beyond what was preached by such bodhisattvas as Dharma Wisdom. (Hori 2002, p. 66)

Nichiren states that the Flower Garland Sutra can be seen as the root source of the teachings in the other sutras with the exception of the Lotus Sutra.

An assertion in the sutra that “there is no distinction among the mind, the Buddha, and the unawakened is said to be the theoretical foundation of not only the Flower Garland, but also the Dharma Characteristics, Three Treatise, True Word, and Tendai Schools.” (Ibid, p. 46 modified)

The actual origins of the Flower Garland Sutra are apparently in Central Asia or even China, centuries after the Buddha’s passing. Only two chapters, the “Ten Stages” and the “Entry into the Realm of Reality” are extant in Sanskrit, and they date as late as the second century CE. Those two chapters were originally considered sutras in their own right. At some point before the middle of the 5th century these two sutras, several other independent sutras, and perhaps some newly generated sutras to fill the gaps, were edited and compiled in the form of the Flower Garland Sutra. (See Cook, pp. 21-22)

In China, the Flower Garland Sutra inspired the creation of two schools. The first was the short-lived Ten Stages School (C. Ti-lun) based upon a commentary on the “Ten Stages” chapter of the Flower Garland Sutra attributed to Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese in the 6th century. The second school, the Flower Garland School (C. Hua-yen), subsumed this earlier school in the 7th century. The Flower Garland School is considered to have five great patriarchs: Tu-shun (557-640), Chih-yen (602-668), Fa-tsang (643-712; aka Hsien-shou), Ch’eng-kuan (738-820 or 838), and Tsung-mi (780-841). Tu-shun is honored as the first patriarch, but Fa-tsang was the one who systematized its teachings and was the actual founder of the school. Tsung-mi was both a patriarch of the Flower Garland School and also a Zen Master. The persecution of Buddhism in China by the Emperor Wu from 845-847 were disastrous for the Flower Garland, Dharma Characteristics, T’ien-t’ai, and other schools that relied upon patronage and scholarly apparatus. They faded away in China as independent schools, and only Pure Land and Zen continued to flourish in China thereafter. Still, the influence of the Flower Garland School continued to be felt long after as it became the doctrinal foundation for Zen Buddhism in China, Korea, and Vietnam and some of its terminology and insights were assimilated by Neo-Confucianism.

During its heyday, the Flower Garland School tried to account for all the Buddha’s teachings. Among the teachings it assimilated were those emphasizing the tathagata-garbha or buddha-nature. Its primary sources were translations of Indian Mahayana works by the Indian scholar-monk Paramartha (499-569). Among several other works, Paramartha translated the Summary of the Mahayana (S. Mahayana-samgraha) by Asanga that gave rise to the short-lived Summary of the Mahayana School (C. She-lun) that faded away when the Dharma Characteristics School was established based upon the newer translations of Yogachara works by Hsuan-tsang (602-664). Paramartha is also credited with translating the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana Treatise attributed to Ashvaghosha. How Paramartha’s buddha-nature oriented teachings differed from the later teachings of Hsuan-tsang’s Dharma Characteristics School will be explained momentarily.

Like the T’ien-t’ai school before it, the Flower Garland School organized the Buddha’s lifetime of teachings into a five-part classification system: Hinayana, Initial Mahayana, Final Mahayana, Sudden, and Perfect. Its patriarchs conveyed the main points of the Flower Garland Sutra itself in terms of the 10 Mysteries and Six Characteristics that are alluded to by Nichiren. By explaining these, I will be able to provide a brief summary of the teachings of the Flower Garland School. This will hopefully provide both a summary of the common assumptions held by a majority of East Asian Buddhists (including Nichiren) up to the present-day, but will also show why the Flower Garland teachings are held in such high regard. I will then discuss why Nichiren felt that there was a flaw or even a crack in the gem that is the Flower Garland Sutra.

The Five Teachings

Hinayana – This is identical to the Tripitika teaching or the Deer Park period of the T’ien-t’ai system. The purpose of this period is to teach the shravakas that there is no self, only the five aggregates, the 12 sense bases (the five physical sense plus mind and their respective objects), or the 18 elements (the 12 sense bases plus the respective consciousness for each pair), or the 12-fold chain of dependent origination. In keeping with the teachings of the Abhidharma Treasury School or the Completion of Reality School, the method of these teachings is to show that what we take to be a permanent, independent, unchanging self is actually nothing more than the causal and conditioned flow of the actual building blocks of reality called dharmas. The dharmas are just momentary phenomenal expressions of bare consciousness, various types of mental activities, and basic material elements like earth (resistance, solids), air (pressure, gases), fire (temperature, chemical reactions), and water (cohesiveness, liquids).

According to the Abhidharma Treasury School, the Hinayana followers traverse five paths: the path of accumulating merit and meditative stability, the path of preparation through insight meditation, the path of seeing wherein they overcome the defilements and get their first genuine glimpse of nirvana and become stream-winners, the path of cultivation whereby they deepen their realization and attain the fruits of the once-returner and non-returner, and finally the path of no-more-learning whereby they attain nirvana and become arhats and after death, according to this level of teaching, their body is reduced to ashes and their consciousness is annihilated and they are never reborn in the six lower worlds (or anywhere else) ever again.

The focus here is on what the Flower Garland School calls the realm of phenomena or actualities (C. shih; J. ji). By looking past our assumptions that that there are graspable things like tables, chairs, animals, or people, we see that underlying these things is nothing but the impersonal flow of dharmas, the real actualities. Awakening to the dharmas, one lets go of the idea of self and loses one’s attachment and aversion for conditioned phenomena.

Initial Mahayana (Consciousness Only) – This teaching is roughly equivalent to the Shared teaching and also many elements of the Extended and Perfection of Wisdom periods. It actually has two parts, the first of which is the teachings of the Yogachara or Conciousness Only School as expounded by the Dharma Characteristics School. In this teaching the Buddha explains that there is more to us than just our five sensory consciousnesses and the mind that constitute our conscious life. There are two other forms of consciousness whose activities we would today call subconscious. There is a seventh consciousness that constantly clings to the idea of a self that acts and is acted upon. This ego-consciousness constantly reinforces our egocentrism. The object of the seventh consciousness, what it takes to be a “self,” is the eighth consciousness that is actually the storehouse of all our memories and the seeds sown by our karmic activities (which is to say our intentional thoughts, words, and deeds both wholesome and unwholesome). The storehouse consciousness is actually the source of the other seven consciousnesses and their respective experiences because the seeds in the storehouse produce them. The activities of the first seven consciousnesses in turn are said to perfume the storehouse consciousness by planting new seeds and further conditioning (for better or worse) the seeds that are already there, thereby perpetuating their phenomenal existence or allowing them to ripen into conscious experience and activity. So the experiences we have in terms of the first six consciousnesses and our reactions to them create and condition the seeds in the storehouse and the seeds in the storehouse give rise to further experiences and activities when conditions allow them to ripen. This process of mutual conditioning between the seeds in the storehouse consciousness and the activities of the first seven forms of consciousness is what is known as the simultaneity of cause and effect. All of this helps to account for the continuity of memory and more importantly the continuous flow of karma and one’s sense of a fixed identify even when the sixth consciousnesses drops away due to unconsciousness, deep sleep, or at the moment of death. It is also used to show how consciousness conditions experience and gives rise to the duality of subject and object. According to this teaching there are no objects apart from how they are experienced in consciousness and no fixed independent subject apart from the delusion of the ego-consciousness that falsely takes the conditioned flow of the storehouse consciousness to be such a subject or self.

According to this teaching there are three natures. The flow of causes and conditions that makes up the storehouse consciousness is called the dependent nature because the misperception of the duality of subject and object depend upon it as its basis. The subject-object duality superimposed upon the dependent nature is called the imagined nature. The Buddha’s clear perception that there are no subjects or objects within the dependent nature is called the perfected nature. The three natures are often explained using the analogy of a man seeing a rope in the dark. At first the man thinks he sees a snake. This is the imagined nature. Then he sees that what he took to be a snake in the dark is just a rope. This is to recognize the dependent nature upon which the illusion of the snake depends. Upon further examination he sees that even the common object called a rope is really just a mass of fibers twisted together and there is no real objective rope. This is the perfected nature that no longer falsely attributes a fixed self or self-nature to the flow of causes and conditions. Through the teaching of the three natures, the Consciousness Only teachings point out that all objects including the dharmas of the previous teaching are just misperceptions of consciousness and that to overcome these delusions consciousness must be purified through Buddhist practice.

The problem is that in order to purify oneself through authentic practice one must have pure seeds within the storehouse consciousness that can give rise to such practices and their corresponding fruit. This led to a Buddhist theory of five distinct natures covered previously. In this theory, some have the seeds to become arhats, some have the seeds to become pratyekabuddhas, some have the seeds for buddhahood, some have all three types of seeds, and some have no pure seeds at all and can only hope to attain temporary respite in the human or heavenly realms. Accordingly the Consciousness Only School teaches that the three vehicles are the ultimate teaching of the Buddha and that the One Vehicle is only to encourage those with all three kinds of seeds to aspire to buddhahood. This is the teaching that Saicho (767-822) refuted in favor of the One Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra as applying to everyone equally because of the universality of buddha-nature.

Those who can attain buddhahood, according to this teaching, must still spend three innumerable eons (S. asamkhya kalpas) cultivating their store of merit and wisdom as bodhisattvas practicing the six perfections. During this time they also traverse five paths except that for them the path of no-more learning is the attainment of buddhahood. At that point they undergo a revolution at the base of consciousness (i.e. the eighth), so that all eight consciousnesses are purified. The eighth or storehouse consciousness is transformed into the perfect mirror wisdom that reflects reality just as it is, the seventh transforms into the wisdom of essential equality that perceives the non-dual true nature, the sixth transforms into the wisdom of unerring observation that correctly perceives differences between conditioned phenomena, and the first five consciousnesses transform into the wisdom of unrestricted activity that guides compassionate action.

Initial Mahayana (Middle Way) – In India the Consciousness Only School arose as a reaction to the seemingly nihilistic rhetoric of the Middle Way or Madhyamika School. The Middle Way School had set up two levels of truth. The first was the conventional (S. samvirti) whereby one can speak in terms of self, others, and everyday objects. The other was the ultimate (S. paramartha) whereby self, other, and all things (including the dharmas) are empty of any self-nature. The teaching of emptiness has been covered previously. The problem for some people was that if even the dharmas were empty then there was no solid basis for anything at all. There was nothing for the conventional truth to be based upon except a fathomless emptiness. To correct this, the Consciousness Only School claimed that consciousness was the actual basis of reality as discussed above. The Flower Garland School, however, saw this as a mistake, in that consciousness was also a causal process even according to the Consciousness Only School teachings and therefore also empty of self-nature. Because the Middle Way teachings, such as taught by the Three Treatises School, are seen as more consistent in applying emptiness to all dharmas without excepting consciousness, the Flower Garland School judged them to be profounder than the Consciousness Only teachings.

The focus in the Initial Mahayana is on what the Flower Garland School calls the realm of principle (C. li; J. ri). The principle of all phenomena is that they are all empty of any kind of self-nature. The Consciousness Only teachings indicate this by pointing out how all things are just transformations of consciousness. The Middle Way teachings are then used to point out how all conditioned things, including consciousness, cannot have an unchanging independent self-nature and are therefore empty. Awakening to the principle of emptiness, one is free of all clinging because there is nothing to cling to and no one to do any clinging. Fa-tsang, however, taught that principle is not merely emptiness but the buddha-nature itself, which is taught in the Final Mahayana.

Final Mahayana – The teaching of the tathagata-garbha or buddha-nature constitutes the third kind of teaching and is derived from the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana Treatise, and sutras that emphasize the tathagata-garbha such as the Revealing the Profound Secrets Sutra, the Lankavatara Sutra, the Queen Shrimala Sutra. While the previous teachings explained that reality is empty of self-nature, this teaching explains that reality is not empty of buddha-qualities. The true reality is in fact buddha-nature, which is empty of defilement. Another term for this is tathagata-garbha. “Tathagata” is another term for a buddha, and it can mean either “thus-come-one” or “thus-gone-one.” In other words, a buddha is one who comes and goes freely from the realm of truth. “Garbha” means either “womb” or “embryo” and perhaps it is best to translate it as “matrix.” So “tathagata-garbha” means “matrix of the thus-come-one.” The tathagata-garbha is the Dharma-kaya or reality-body of the Buddha when obscured by defilements. It is the unconditioned true nature of reality and therefore, unlike conditioned phenomena, is characterized as pure, blissful, eternal, and true self. It might seem a bit odd to call it a “true self” seeing as how so much effort was made to deny that anything has a self-nature, but in this case the term does not mean the “self-nature” of a conditioned self or dharma but the authenticity of the true nature of all reality. I must confess that I am not myself convinced of the wisdom or coherence of this kind of rhetoric, nevertheless it is the term used in sutras like the Queen Shrimala Sutra and the Nirvana Sutra. The tathagata-garbha is also the pure aspect of the storehouse consciousness even prior to its transformation into the perfect mirror wisdom consciousness. In fact, according to Paramartha’s translations and commentaries the tathagata-garbha is the pure consciousness that is not just an aspect of the eighth consciousness but can be considered a ninth consciousness. There is no one who is bereft of this buddha-nature, the pure consciousness. Note that Paramartha’s interpretation was rejected by the Dharma Characteristics School but continued to be affirmed in the T’ien-t’ai School, the Flower Garland School, and the True Word School. The teaching that there is a pure consciousness that must be cleared of adventitious defilements (such as those stored by the storehouse consciousness) is, however, something that can be found as far back as the teachings in the Pali Canon.

This mind, O monks, is luminous, but it is defiled by adventitious defilements. The uninstructed worldling does not understand this as it really is; therefore for him there is no mental development.

This mind, O monks, is luminous, and it is freed from adventitious defilements. The instructed noble disciple understands this as it really is, therefore for him there is mental development. (Nyanaponika & Bodhi, p. 36)

If this is indeed the case, and there is a pure consciousness in the depths of our being, then Buddhist practice is not about creating an awakened state of mind but of recovering or rediscovering the awakened state of mind that was there all along. This is what is taught in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana Treatise: “Grounded on the original enlightenment is non-enlightenment. And because of non-enlightenment, the process of actualization of enlightenment can be spoken of.” (Hakeda, p. 38) How the pure consciousness came to be obscured by adventitious defilements in the first place seems to be an unanswerable question. The point of the teaching is that a pure awakened mind is always present and that our practice can wipe away the obscurations and allow it to shine like a bright mirror cleaned of dust. Another analogy often used is of the ocean and its waves. The defilements that arise according to causes and conditions are like the waves that arise in the ocean when the wind blows. When the wind has died down and the waves have calmed, the ocean becomes still and calm and can reflect the clear blue sky. This analogy is the inspiration for what the Flower Garland School calls the Ocean Seal Samadhi wherein the mind, like a calm ocean, is restored to its original nature that is calm and serene and perfectly reflects reality as it is.

The initial and final Mahayana constitute what the Flower Garland School considers the Gradual teaching of the Buddha, because he gradually leads the bodhisattvas to perfect and complete awakening. According to sutras like the Bodhisttva Practice Jewel Necklace Sutra there are 52 stages of bodhisattva practice. These stages are spread out over the five paths enumerated in the Consciousness Only teachings. The first ten are the ten levels of faith for those on the path of accumulation. The next thirty are the ten abodes, ten levels of practice, and ten levels of merit transference that belong to the path of preparation. Then come the ten stages, the first of which corresponds to the path of seeing, and the next nine of which belong to the path of cultivation. Then there is a stage of preliminary awakening followed by supreme subtle awakening that is equivalent to the path of no-more learning. What is attained is not the nirvana of the arhat that rejects samsara, but rather the non-abiding nirvana whereby through wisdom the Buddha does not dwell in samsara but through compassion the Buddha does not abide in nirvana either but rather freely engages in liberating activities throughout samsara. Actually the Buddha realizes that samsara and nirvana are not separate but simply reality when viewed from a deluded or awakened perspective respectively.

The focus here is on what the Flower Garland School calls the realm of the non-obstruction of principle and actuality (C. li shih wu ai; J. riji muge). The principle of emptiness and the actualities of conditioned phenomena are not separate. Unless phenomena are empty of self-nature they cannot be causal and conditioned phenomena, as they would just be permanently themselves, unalterable, permanent, and capable of neither influencing nor being influenced by any other phenomena. Apart from conditioned phenomena there is no such thing as emptiness, as emptiness is what we call the principle at work in the interdependent relations of conditioned phenomena. Principle and phenomena actually implicate each other. This is of course similar to the unity of provisional existence and emptiness in the Middle Way according to the T’ien-t’ai teachings. Awakening to the non-obstruction of principle and actuality, one is able to both liberated due to emptiness and simultaneously compassionately engaged with the actualities of the world.

Sudden – The Sudden teaching does not add any new content, but differs in the manner of presentation. It is indicative of a direct presentation of reality instead of a gradual teaching by way of concepts or a series of reflections. Ch’eng-kuan associated this kind of teaching with the Zen School. The following scene from the Vimalakirti Sutra is an example of it in action:

When the various bodhisattvas had finished one by one giving their explanations, they asked Manjushri, “How then does the bodhisattva enter the gate of nondualism?”

Manjushri replied, “To my way of thinking, all dharmas are without words, without explanations, without purport, without cognition, removed from all questions and answers. In this way one may enter the gate of nondualism.”

Then Manjushri said to Vimalakirti, “Each of us has given an explanation. Now, sir, it is your turn to speak. How does the bodhisattva enter the gate of nondualism?”

At that time Vimalakirti remained silent and did not speak a word.

Manjushri sighed and said, “Excellent, excellent! Not a word, not a syllable – this truly is to enter the gate of nondualism!”

(Watson, pp. 110-111)

Perfect – This level of teaching is identified by Chih-yen as the One Vehicle teaching and therefore with both the Lotus Sutra and the Flower Garland Sutra. According to Chih-yen, the Hinayana, Gradual Mahayana, and Sudden Mahayana teachings are the three vehicles taught by the Buddha in accordance with the capacities of his disciples. In the Lotus Sutra all these former teachings merge into the single identity of the One Vehicle. Chih-yen called this the Shared Doctrine wherein the One Vehicle is an expression of the common thread shared by the three vehicles. By contrast, the Flower Garland Sutra teaches what Chih-yen called the Distinct Doctrine that expresses the Buddha’s own perspective that transcends the three vehicles and is only accessible to those who also attain perfect and complete awakening. Chih-yen, naturally, claimed that the One Vehicle of the Distinct Doctrine taught in the Flower Garland Sutra is superior to all the other perspectives and teachings based on them. Fa-tsang, even demoted the One Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra to the category of the Final Mahayana to emphasize the contrast he saw between the two sutras.

The focus here is on what the Flower Garland School calls the realm of the non-obstruction of actuality and actuality (C. shih shih wu ai; J. jiji muge). What this means is that if all actual phenomena are empty of a fixed, unchanging self-nature because they are dependent on causes and conditions, then their true nature is nothing but causes and conditions. Those causes and conditions are themselves actualities dependent on causes and conditions. Therefore, any actuality is part of a vast network of other actualities all of which are mutually supporting and mutually containing and contained. This being the case, actualities not only do not obstruct one another but require each other in a holistic network of interpenetration where all things are one with all other things and yet able to retain their own distinct phenomenal actuality. For instance, grapes do not just depend upon sunlight, rain, soil, and myriad other climatic conditions; these contributing factors all enter into the composition of the grapes that then express all these contributing factors in a unique way through the color, consistency, flavor, and quality of the wine that the grapes produce. As the Flower Garland Sutra teaches, “Thus does infinity enter into one, yet each unit’s distinct, with no overlap.” (Cleary 1993, p. 200) Awakening to the non-obstruction of actuality and actuality, one realizes that all is one and one is all. In terms of practice, this means that the first stage of the 52 stages of practice contains all the other stages within it.

In order to expound the interpenetration of all phenomena or actualities the Flower Garland School teaches it in terms of the 10 mysterious gates and six characteristics. There are different versions of the 10 mysterious gates. The following is how they are listed according to Fa-tsang in his On the Golden Lion Treatise (the brief explanations are my own):

1.   Simultaneous complete correspondence – This gate is another way of expressing the mutual interdependence of all phenomena as per the teaching of the non-obstruction of actuality and actuality. All the other gates are derived from this one.

2.   Purity and mixture of the stores containing all qualities – This means that every single phenomenon retains its own pure identify or wholeness but can also be seen as the mixture of the qualities of the causes and conditions of the whole.

3.   Mutual inclusion and differentiation of one and many – Each phenomenon or actuality contains all others as its causes and conditions but without losing its own distinct identity.

4.   Mutual identity of all phenomena in freedom – Each actuality freely expresses itself but at the same time it is identified with all other phenomena that it supports and is supported by.

5.   Simultaneous establishment of disclosure and concealment – A single actuality that is focused on expresses, in its own unique way, all of its causes and conditions but in doing so obscures them as well.

6.   Peaceful coexistence of the minute and the subtle – Even the most seemingly small and insignificant actuality contains and is contained by the whole without interfering with its own unique expression.

7.   Realm of Indra’s net – The mutual interpenetration of all things can be likened to the net of the god Indra wherein the interstices of the net each hold a jewel and each jewel reflects all the others and is reflected in all the others.

8.   Creation of understanding by revealing the Dharma through facts – One can take any actuality as an example of the teaching of mutual interpenetration.

9.   Differentiation of the ten time periods – The actualities of past, present, and future also mutually implicate one another and are not separate though they remain distinct.

10. Universal accomplishment through the projection of consciousness only – The mutual interpenetration of all actualities is none other than the activity of the One Mind, the absolute understood as pure consciousness.

In the same treatise, Fa-tsang gives the following explanation of the six characteristics of wholeness, diversity, universality, particularity, formation, disintegration possessed by phenomena in their interrelations using the analogy of a golden statue of a lion:

The lion represents the character of wholeness, and the five organs, being various and different, represent diversity. The fact that they are all of one dependent-arising represents the character of universality. The eyes, ears, and so on remain in their own places and do not interfere with one another; this represents the character of particularity. The combination and convergence of the various organs makes up the lion; this represents the character of formation. The fact that each remains at its own position represents the character of disintegration. (Chang, p. 230)

All of this only provides a bit of a taste of the way the Flower Garland School explains interpenetration. It would take many more pages to clarify the meaning of the 10 mysterious gates and the six characteristics and this would stray from my intention of simply presenting a brief overview of the Flower Garland Sutra and the teachings of the Flower Garland School. The important thing to know is that the Flower Garland School felt that the highest teaching of Buddhism was that every single phenomena exists only by virtue of the totality of all causes and conditions, which is to say by virtue of all other phenomena. This means that every single phenomenon contains and is contained by all others throughout the past, present, and future in a totality that is identified with the pure consciousness that is the buddha-nature when obscured but when cleared of defilement is the One Mind of the Buddha.

The Flower Garland School presents a marvelous and inspiring vision of reality as a single organic system whose basis is the purity of the buddha-nature that is empty of an unchanging independent self-nature and the defilements but not empty of the qualities of buddhahood. Nichiren, however, insists that Flower Garland Sutra itself is lacking in comparison with the Lotus Sutra.

How can it be that the Buddha kept his teachings unrevealed in such a wonderful sutra? The Buddha said in this sutra, however, that adherents of the two vehicles and the incorrigible disbelievers cannot become buddhas. This statement of the Buddha is like a flaw in a precious stone. He also said as many as three times in this sutra that he attained awakening for the first time during his life in this world. He never revealed in this sutra that he attained buddhahood in the remotest past as he did in the “Chapter of the Duration of the Life of the Tathagata” in the Lotus Sutra. From this we must say that the Flower Garland Sutra is like a broken gem, the moon covered with clouds, or the eclipsed sun. It is very strange.  (Murano 2000, pp. 29-30 slightly modified)

Lets examine these two points. Earlier in Kaimoku Sho, Nichiren cited a passage of the Flower Garland Sutra that compared the two vehicles to a tree in a burning pit and the incorrigible disbelievers to a tree in poisonous water, in neither case will their buddha-nature ever be able to flower just as a tree in a burning pit or poisonous water cannot flower. (See Hori 2002, pp. 38-39) This passage is not in the Flower Garland Sutra as translated by Thomas Cleary. Still, it is true that the Flower Garland Sutra does not have any passages that would assure the arhats or pratyekabuddhas of someday attaining buddhahood. On the other hand there are passage like the following: “The very first thought to seek buddhahood the worldly, or even those of the two vehicles cannot know – much less the other virtuous practices.” (Cleary 1993, p. 399 slightly modified) Both the Lotus Sutra and the Flower Garland Sutra teach that the bodhisattva vehicle is beyond the comprehension of the followers of the two vehicles and that the Buddha uses skillful means to teach, but it would seem that Nichiren is correct in that only in the Lotus Sutra does the Buddha explicitly affirm that even the major disciples who are already arhats will attain buddhahood, going so far as to give them predictions of their attainment of buddhahood.

As for the attainment of buddhahood in the remote past, the Flower Garland Sutra does affirm that the true nature of the buddhas is unborn and deatheless. “Just as space itself is unborn and unperishing, so is the truth of the buddhas, ultimately birthless and deathless.” (Ibid, p. 521) The problem for Nichiren is that this affirmation is usually taken to only apply to the Dharma-body of the Buddha, who is calle Vairochana or Mahavairochana. Shakyamuni Buddha is usually viewed as a mere emanation of Mahavairochana who was born on a certain date, attained buddhahood under the Bodhi Tree at the age of 30 (or 35), and passed away when he entered parinirvana at the age of 80. As cited above, the Flower Garland Sutra opens by stating that Shakyamuni Buddha had just attained awakening under the Bodhi Tree. A little further on in the sutra the bodhisattvas say to the Buddha, “Countless eons of practice complete, you’ve become truly awake under the enlightenment tree: you appear universally to liberate beings, like clouds filling all to the end of time.” (Ibid, p. 150) This passage also asserts that Shakyamuni Buddha had just attained buddhahood while sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Again, Nichiren is correct in that only in chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra does Shakyamuni Buddha himself speak of his attainment of buddhahood as happening in the remote past and of his life as being unborn and deathless. What this means will be covered next.

Sources

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_____________, trans. The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Boston: Shambhala, 1993.

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