Pāli Foundations The Earliest Chinese Translations Early Mahāyāna The Three Pure Land Sūtras The Great Mahāyāna Sūtras Two Streams The Flower Ornament Coda

Part 7 · The Flower Ornament

Recollection · 5 papers

The long road of buddha-recollection has reached its last and widest country — the Flower Ornament Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka.[ from the book's part intro ]

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25Samantabhadra's Ten Great VowsSamantabhadra's ten great vows — reverencing buddhas, praising tathāgatas, offering, repenting, rejoicing, requesting the turning of the wheel, requesting the buddhas to abide, following in the buddhas' learning, according with sentient beings, universally dedicating — are most often read in the contemporary Anglophone setting as ten distinct items of meritorious conduct. This paper argues that this reading misses the structural wholeness the text itself supplies. The vows are bound into one integral practice by two mechanisms internal to the Avataṃsaka (T0293, fascicle forty): the vow-king (praṇidhāna-rāja 願王) operator that gathers the ten as one, and the moment-by-moment continuous fourfold-exhaustion-fourfold-inexhaustion closure-formula that lifts each vow into an exhaustionless temporal current. The same fascicle forty, together with the twenty-one gates of buddha-recollection in fascicle four and the eleven moment-by-moment prajñā-pāramitās in fascicle thirty-nine, supplies the locus classicus of dharma-realm buddha-recollection within the sūtra's own corpus — that framework is not a later Huayan-school imposition; it is what the Avataṃsaka already is. The late-imperial confluence traced in the previous paper (P24) from Yongming Yanshou through Yunqi Zhuhong to Ouyi Zhixu reaches its textual ground precisely here — in fascicle forty's closing prose on the vow-king alone unsundered at the moment of death and its verse may I, when about to die, behold Amitābha face-to-face. Part VI has already authenticated Part VII. The paper engages Francis Cook (1977), Peter Gregory (1991), and Robert Gimello (1983) in a mixed concede-and-push-back / concede-and-extend mode, recovers three philological cautions, and reserves the vow-by-vow exegesis for P26–P29.26Reverencing All Buddhas, Praising the Tathāgatas, and Extensively Making OfferingsThis paper treats the first three of Samantabhadra's ten great vows (Bhadracarī-praṇidhāna): reverencing all buddhas (lǐjìng zhū fó 禮敬諸佛, vow one), praising the tathāgatas (chēngzàn rúlái 稱讚如來, vow two), and extensively making offerings (guǎngxiū gòngyǎng 廣修供養, vow three). The thesis: these are not the first three items in a list of ten meritorious deeds but the body, speech, and mind halves of a three-karma set — vow one led principally by body-karma, vow two principally by speech-karma, vow three principally by mind-karma. Vow one's "reverencing" must be read as the highest three rungs of Chengguan's ten-form ladder of reverence — the great-compassion, total-encompassing, and inexhaustible forms — and not as mechanical prostration; vow two's "praising" must be read as the four unobstructed understandings (catasraḥ pratisaṃvidaḥ) together with the seven branches of eloquence at the ninth bodhisattva ground, not as lyrical encomium; vow three's "extensively making offerings" must be read as the seven kinds of dharma-offering — practising-as-taught, benefitting sentient beings, gathering-in sentient beings, taking on sentient beings' suffering, diligent cultivation of wholesome roots, not abandoning the bodhisattva's work, not departing from the awakening-mind — as the bodhisattva's outward-facing work, not as material almsgiving or charitable donation. The three vows form an isomorphic triplet at the textual level of T0293 itself — sharing the same cosmological field, the same practice-vow-power engine, the same four-exhaustion-four-inexhaustion closure formula, and the same "body, speech, and mind never wearying" coda. In Chinese ritual practice the set is directly codified by Shandao's Verses for the Six Times of Reverence-Praise (the gateways of body-karma prostration, speech-karma praise, and mind-karma recollection-and-contemplation) and by the parallel placement of "three-karma offering / praising the Three Jewels / prostrating to the buddhas" in Zhiyi's Lotus Samādhi Repentance Liturgy. The paper pushes back against Cook 1977's metaphysics-only reading of Huayan — strengthened by appeal to the sūtra's own "true offering" textual hook and the textual isomorphism of the three vows — and extends Schopen 1997's archaeological grounding of early Buddhist devotion and Sharf 2002/2005's anti-psychologizing of Buddhist ritual.27Repenting Karmic Obstructions, Rejoicing in MeritThis paper continues the previous paper's (NIAN P26) argument that Samantabhadra's first three vows compose a three-karma set, and now treats vows four and five — repenting karmic obstructions (chànhuǐ yèzhàng 懺悔業障, vow four) and rejoicing in merit (suíxǐ gōngdé 隨喜功德, vow five). The thesis: these two vows are not the fourth and fifth items in a list of ten meritorious deeds but the twin wings of karma practice — a karma dyad — vow four operating as the decrement wing that addresses one's own past unwholesome action, vow five operating as the increment wing that draws into one's own practice the wholesome action of all others. Three pieces of textual evidence support this dyadic reading. First, the four-exhaustion-four-inexhaustion closure formula at the end of vows four and five is fully isomorphic with the closure formula of vows one through three at the textual level of T0293 itself — extending the previous paper's vows one to three closure-formula isomorphism finding into a vows one to five 100% isomorphism confirmation. Second, the verse-section's thirty-second stanza pairs the two vows internally in a single line — "rejoicing-along, repenting, and all wholesome roots" — making the dyadic pairing explicit at the verse-text level of the sūtra. Third, in the seven-branch worship lineage (saptāṅga-pūjā) — whose earliest Chinese-canonical configuration is fixed by Nāgārjuna's Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (T1509) fascicle sixty-one — vows four and five occupy the third and fourth branches. The argument is developed across three frames: the seven-branch worship genealogy; the Madhyamaka two-truths exposition of karma; and the Yogācāra two transformations of the basis. The Chinese ritual-practice closure draws on Zhiyi's ten-section Lotus Samādhi Repentance Liturgy (T1941) and the rejoicing segment of the fifth recollection-gateway in Shandao's Verses for the Six Times of Reverence-Praise (T1980). The paper engages three Anglophone interlocutors in a one-pushback-plus-two-extensions configuration: vis-à-vis Stevenson 1986/1999 it concedes-and-pushes-back on the modernist internalising reading by retrieving Stevenson's own tri-register ritual technology frame; vis-à-vis Heim 2004's theories of the gift in South Asia and Sharf 2002/2005's anti-psychologising of Buddhist ritual it concedes-and-extends. Five philological warnings are addressed: the sūtra-layer-versus-treatise-layer drift in karmic obstruction; the Tang-Song retrospective character of the three-modes-of-repentance labels; the register shift between early-Buddhist future-oriented future-restraint and Mahāyāna retroactive purification — the cardinal mitigation, not erasure slogan — which must be stated in two registers and never collapsed into a single line of development; the four-way distinction anumodanā / muditā / kataññū / pattidāna; the terminology drift in pure precepts.28Requesting the Turning of the Dharma-Wheel, Requesting the Buddhas to AbideThis paper continues the previous papers' (NIAN P26 / P27) structural reading of Samantabhadra's ten great vows, and now treats vows six and seven — requesting the turning of the dharma-wheel (qǐng zhuǎn fǎlún 請轉法輪, vow six) and requesting the buddhas to abide in the world (qǐng fó zhù shì 請佛住世, vow seven). The thesis: these two vows are not the sixth and seventh items in a list of ten meritorious deeds but the request-structure dyad — the two modes of dharma persistence — vow six operating as the event mode that fixes onto the dynamic event of the dharma's being set in motion, vow seven operating as the state mode that fixes onto the buddhas' continued abiding as the field within which that turning takes place. Three pieces of textual evidence support this dyadic reading. First, the four-exhaustion-four-inexhaustion closure formula at the end of vows six and seven is fully isomorphic with the closure formula of vows one through five at the textual level of T0293 itself — extending the previous papers' findings into a vows one to seven 100% isomorphism (third-time confirmation). Second, vows six and seven are the only two vows in the ten that share the same operator verb qǐng / quànqǐng (請 / 勸請, "to invite, to request") — the dyadic pairing is self-evident at the grammatical level. Third, the early-narrative roots of the two vows compose a twin-mirror narrative grammar: vow six universalises the successful invitation by Brahmā Sahampati (preserved across SN 6.1 / T0099 / T1421) into a trans-buddha cosmic event; vow seven preemptively corrects the failed invitation at Cāpāla cetiya (DN 16 / T0001 / T0007) where Ānanda missed the buddha's three openings of the gate of inviting. The argument is developed across five sub-sections: closure-formula isomorphism with grammatical self-attestation; vow six and the cosmic-event amplification of the Brahmā request; vow seven and the preemptive correction of the Cāpāla failure; the dharma persistence thesis-pivot via Zongmi's three-fold practitioner-side reframe — "the request lies in the purification of one's own mind" (請佛當淨其心), the sun-as-vessel simile, and the threefold-truth reconciliation — together with the doctrinal grounding in the Lotus Sūtra's Tathāgata's Lifespan and Spiritual Powers chapters and the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha's non-abiding nirvāṇa (apratiṣṭhita-nirvāṇa); and the Chinese ritual-practice closure on Zhiyi's fourth section Inviting the Three Jewels in the Lotus Samādhi Repentance Liturgy (T1941) and Shandao's fused single-line formulation "may they abide and turn the dharma-wheel" in the Verses for the Six Times of Reverence-Praise (T1980). The paper engages three Anglophone interlocutors in a one-pushback-plus-two-extensions configuration: vis-à-vis Faure 1991's performative cosmology it concedes-and-pushes-back on the two-extreme misreadings (theistic petition and modernist psychologising); vis-à-vis Schopen 1997's continued legal-and-ritual presence it concedes-and-extends to vow seven; and vis-à-vis Gummer 2014's sūtra-as-body it concedes-and-extends to vow six.29Constantly Following the Buddha in Study, Accommodating Sentient Beings, Universal DedicationThis paper, the closer of Part VII (the Flower Ornament volume) within the NIAN series of Pointing at the Moon Research, completes the structural walkthrough of Samantabhadra's ten great vows by treating vows eight (constantly following the Buddha in study), nine (accommodating sentient beings), and ten (universal dedication). It argues that these three vows together compose the above-bearing-and-below-transforming dedication closure-triad: vow eight is the upward-bearing dimension (seeking enlightenment above, depending on attribute, prajñā); vow nine is the downward-transforming dimension (transforming sentient beings below, depending on function, vimukti); vow ten is the total dedication (toward the absolute, embracing both, depending on substance, dharmakāya). The closure-formula isomorphism that NIAN P26, P27, and P28 confirmed across vows one through seven is here extended through vows eight, nine, and ten — a fourth-time confirmation, vows one through ten now 100% isomorphic at the closure-formula level, with only the operator verb position varying. The paper further proposes — as its principal originality — that vows one through ten admit a retrospective totalisation along the substance-attribute-function (tǐ-xiāng-yòng 體相用) schema: vows one through three (the three-karma set, P26) constitute substance; vows four through nine (the six vows of transformation — repentance, rejoicing-along, request-to-turn, request-to-abide, study-following, and accommodation, P27 + P28 + the present paper) constitute attribute; vow ten (universal dedication) constitutes function. This reading is not a modern imposition but is articulated by the seventh- to ninth-century Huayan sub-commentators themselves: Zongmi's Detailed Sub-Commentary on the Practice-and-Vow Chapter states that "vow eight is dedication to bodhi, vow nine is dedication to sentient beings, vow ten is the proper dedication — together comprising the three locations," and Chengguan's Practice-and-Vow Chapter Commentary identifies "dedication toward the absolute as relying on substance, toward bodhi as relying on attribute, toward sentient beings as relying on function." The paper foregrounds Francis H. Cook's Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (1977) for final disposal: the ten great vows are not exemplifications of a dharmadhātu metaphysics-of-totality but the operative articulation of a cosmological-ritual operative system instantiated by the substance-attribute-function schema. Concede-and-extend engagements with Paul Williams (2009) and Imre Hamar (2007) supply complementary framing. The paper closes by answering the question posed at the opener of Part VII (NIAN P25) — what is the meaning of the vow-king as a totality? — with the fully-articulated reply: the totality of the vow-king is the ritual-cosmological articulation of the three greats (substance-attribute-function), whose entire architecture finds its retrospective unification at the closure of vow ten.

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Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows: Stretching Buddha-Recollection into a Whole Way of LivingPart 7 · Ch. 1 Reverence to All Buddhas: Only When They Stand "As If Before My Very Eyes" Can the Bow Go DownPart 7 · Ch. 2 Praise the Tathāgatas: The Name Itself Is PraisePart 7 · Ch. 3 Making Offerings Extensively: At Its Height, the Offering Is "Practicing as Taught"Part 7 · Ch. 4 Repenting Karmic Obstructions: First "Recollect Oneself," Then Repentance Can MovePart 7 · Ch. 5 Rejoicing in Merit: To Gladden at Another's Good — This Too Is a Kind of RecollectionPart 7 · Ch. 6 Requesting the Turning of the Dharma-Wheel: The Entreaty That Almost Never HappenedPart 7 · Ch. 7 Requesting the Buddhas to Abide: Do Not Wait for the Lamp to Go Out to Learn the Room Was LitPart 7 · Ch. 8 Constantly Following the Buddha in Study: To Recite the Buddha Is to Take Him as the Model to LearnPart 7 · Ch. 9 Accommodating All Beings: Moving the Reverence Owed the Buddha onto Sentient BeingsPart 7 · Ch. 10 Universal Dedication: The Ten Vows End in "Seeing Amitābha Buddha Face to Face"Part 7 · Ch. 11

Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.