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　　 Yet there is an important aspect of Chan which he has yet to share fully with us.　Although he has lectured on this subject to small groups in New York, so far as I am aware he has yet to present it in a seven day retreat.　The Avata.msaka Suutra is a backbone to much of Chan thinking but few European practitioners are aware of its profound meaning nor of the Chinese philosophical system of Hua-yen that is derived from it.　In the USA some academics, writers on engaged Buddhism, and one or two masters have begun to focus on this system and it potential impact on the relationship between Buddhist and Western thought.

　　 Hua-yen is a way beyond the negativism or nihilism of which outsiders sometimes accuse Buddhism and also a way beyond the problems inherent in the concept of “emptiness” which Chan practitioners inevitably encounter.　Hua-yen does a marvellous job in providing a positive image of Buddhism to which the present generation may comfortably relate and does so without contradicting the emptiness perspective that lies at the root of the Buddhist vision.　It relates well to many problematical issues concerning the environment and interconnected global problems and it could well become a philosophy underwriting the perspectives of those troubled by the need for an “engaged Buddhism” (Jones 1989, 1993).

　　 Many who read the Heart Suutra for the first time are puzzled by the key lines “Form is Emptiness.　Emptiness is Form”, and there has been a tendency to concentrate on the first of these two lines without returning along the second.　Hua-yen provides that all important returning perspective.

　　 The “Avata.msaka” is a vast compendium of Buddhist teachings originating in India but achieving its main impact in China.　Thomas Cleary has completed the mammoth task of translating it into English (1993).　Hua-yen abstracts from this multilayered compendium philosophical principles that are the chief focus of my interest here (Chang 1972).　We may introduce these briefly by considering a few basic propositions.

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　　 1. First we must recall what “emptiness” is empty of ── namely inherent existence.　No apparent thing set before our senses has permanent being in the world for everything is transient, subject to impermanence.　Attachment to any object must therefore necessarily lead to distress especially if that object is oneself or any attribute of oneself such as good fortune, health, youth, wealth, a Mercedes etc.　Yet an absence of inherent existence does not imply a “void” or non-existence as such.　All events are mutually co-determining in a progressive cycle of complexification and degeneration.　This is the principle of the co-dependent arising of phenomena.　Emptiness (`suunyataa) is such (Tathaagata).　One could say that the universe is like a river rather than like a rock.　It continually flows and one can never enter the same stream twice.

　　 2. Objects appear to us as images.　The mind may be likened to a gigantic mirror in which the properties of the universe are reflected.　We only see events as in a mirror.　These images are not the things in themselves but rather constitute a virtual reality.　This is all we have.　While we may impute form and structure, causality and relatedness to images we do not through our senses actually contact them as they appear.

　　 3. Descriptive knowledge is thus necessarily indirect.　There is a metaphorical account of this in a description of a monk teaching a pupil.　The monk appears in the mirror of the pupil, the pupil appears in the mirror of the monk.　The teaching is likewise mirrored and so is the acknowledgement of any understanding.　The nature of knowledge is “such.”

　　 4. Furthermore different properties may be assigned to apparent things by different minds, persons or teaching.　For example water may be said to be a liquid, H2O, melted ice, congealed vapour, molecules or quanta depending upon the perspective offered.　Yet all of these perspectives exhibit simultaneous mutual arising──furthermore they are each participant in the other showing simultaneous mutual “entering,” and again each contains all the

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others.　When we are aware of these relationships we have a “Totalistic” or “round” picture of how a thing is.　Although any thing is empty of inherent existence it never the less may appear under any one of these mutually penetrating guises.　Thus “emptiness is precisely form.”　The wonderful metaphor of Indra’s net captures this vision nicely.　Above the palace of Indra hangs a Great net from which are suspended millions of multifaceted crystals.　Each reflects all the others in never ending mutuality.

　　 5. The events that appear to us as things──such as a man falling off a horse or an aircraft crash, has two aspects; the described event itself (with all the mutual penetration of potential descriptions) and the underlying causality that may be invisible──the principles that govern the happening.　In Hua-yen the first is called the realm (dharmadhaatu) of shi, the second the realm of li.　There is no obstruction of shi by li as they are mutually interpenetrable.　This leads to a number of contemplations: the principle that li embraces shi, the principle that shi embraces li, the principles that production of shi must depend on li, that shi illustrates li, that shi may be annulled by li, that shi may render li invisible, that while li is shi and all things/events are li yet li is not itself shi nor are shi li.