Contemplation of the Bodhisattva State

CONTEMPLATION OF THE BODHISATTVA STATE

華嚴宗

The Huayan zong (Hua-yen or Flower Garland)

IN CONSTRUCTION   

Text by Cleary 

The Hua-yen doctrine shows the entire cosmos as a single nexus of conditions in which everything simultaneously depends on, and is depended on by, everything else. 

Everything affects and is affected by, immediately or remotely, everything else; just as this is true of every system of relationships, so is it true of the totality of existence. 

Hua-yen thought considers the manifold as an integral part of the unit and the unit as an integral part of the manifold; one individual is considered in terms of relationships to other individuals as well as to the whole nexus, while the whole nexus is considered in terms of its relation to each individual as well as to all individuals.

Virtue within the Hua-yen teaching is based on this fundamental theme of universal interdependence. The person devoted to Awakening, as a Bodhisattva, constantly nourishes aspiration and will going beyond the world, nevertheless the striving for completion and perfection, the development of ever greater awareness, knowledge, freedom, and capability, is continually reinvested, as it were, in the world, dedicated to the liberation and Awakening of all beings. 

The awakening and unfolding of the complete human potential leads to realms beyond that of conventional experience, and indeed to ultimate transcendence of all conditional experience, yet the bodhisattva never maligns the ordinary and does not forsake it, instead translating appropriate aspects of higher knowledge into insights and actions conducive to the common weal. 

It is generally characteristic of Mahayana or universalistic Buddhism that the mundane welfare of beings is considered a legitimate, if not ultimate, aim of bodhisattva activity, and many aspects of the ethical and practical life of bodhisattvas may be seen in this light... Bodhisattvas therefore strive to benefit all equally, without losing sight of the diversity and complexity of the means necessary to accomplish this end. 

One must then consider the development of a Contemplation which reveals this natural Virtue which is Universal and not particular.