Hua Yan Philosophy Research

The central theme of this thesis is modern interpretation of Hua-yen school’s philosophy. We will discuss and interpret the following important questions:Firstly, by discussing the theoretical resources and ideological basis of Hua-yen philosophy systematically, we can corroborate that Indian Mahayana Buddhism including Madhyamika, Yogacara and the thought of tathagata-garbha is a decisive foundation for Hua-yen school. Although Hua-yen school was created by Chinese Buddhist scholars, but it’s philosophical kernel was belonged to and originated purely from the Indian Mahayana Buddhism. Secondly, this paper will clarify some of common and fundamental misunderstanding in modern Study about Hua-yen philosophy, especially for its entitative misreading. As Hua-yen philosophy is often misinterpreted as a kind of entitative ontology in modern research, its true meaning and thinking is fundamentally coverd and obscured. This paper will show that the real kernel of Hua-yen philosophy is the sunyata of Madhyamika. However, the basic meaning of sunyata is just deconstruction of all kinds of entities, obviously, Hua-yen philosophy can not be any kind of entitative ontology. Thirdly, Through modern interpretation of Hua-yen philosophy, this thesis will show clealy that Hua-yen philosophy is not only closely related with Indian ancient Yogacara,is also the direct successor of Indian Madhyamika, what’s more,it is the most important interpreter for the thought of tathagata-garbha. Hua-yen philosophy is actually the synthesizer of Mahayana, Yogacara and the thought of tathagata-garbha in Indian Buddhism, and Represents the peak of Mahayana Buddhism. At last, as one of the latest school of Chinese Buddhism, Hua-yen philosophy provides the most important theoretical foundation for Chinese and even the whole eastern Asian Mahayana, so clarification of Hua-yen philosophy’s true spirits can provide strong theoretical argument for China and even the whole eastern Asian Mahayana Buddhism when they face to fierce criticism in modern study.The full text is divided into a introduction and four relatively independent and interrelated chapters. The part of introduction will explain a potential writing intention of this paper that it want to provide a modern interpretation for Buddhism regard to Buddhist standard. By discussing the relation of Buddhism and religion, the difference between Buddhist philosophy and general philosophy, the paper point out the uniqueness of Buddhism and then puts forward a kind of modern Buddhist hermeneutics which interpret Buddhism as Buddhism itself, it will be different from the interpretation of Buddhism according to the Perspective of western academic.The following four chapters made a systematic study about Hua-yen philosophy from four different angles and themes. The first chapter gives basic and guiding explanation on some related problems. is divided into three sections. The first section comment on Avatamsaka Sutra or called Hua-yen Jing which is the fundamental sutra of Hua-yen school. The development and history of Hua-yen school is described and analyzed briefly in the second section, the discussion focuses on five famous masters of Hua-yen school. The third section made thorough analysis about problems and errors in modern studies on Hua-yen philosophy, the paper points out that Hua-yen philosophy is universally misreaded as a kind of entitative ontology just because modern research ignores and splits the internal connection between Hua-yen philosophy and Indian Mahayana Buddhism.The second chapter is a systematical discussion about the theoretical origin of Hua-yen philosophy. The paper will provide deep detailed analysis respectively about Madhyamika, Yogacara and the thought of tathagata-garbha, which involves a large number of important problems in Buddhist philosophy. Madhyamika, Yogacara and the thought of tathagata-garbha not only provides the most important theoretical basis for Hua-yen philosophy, in fact,they are included in the whole system of Hua-yen philosophy, the deep interpretation about them belongs to the core of Hua-yen philosophy, therefore, this chapter can also be regarded as a groundbreaking for Hua-yen philosophy.The third chapter will discuss the Hua-yen philosophy’s theory about classification of the whole Buddhism, focuses on two points which have been fiercely argued in Chinese Buddhism history. One is the relation between Hua-yen school’s classification and Tian-tai’s classification of the whole Buddhism, the other is the rationality of "Mahayana’s direct teaching". This paper will show the most important theoretical contribution of Hua-yen school’s classification of the whole buddhism is that it found and sorted out the thought of tathagata-garbha in Indian Buddhism as a independent sect just like Madhyamika and Yogacara, at the same time, Hua-yen school point out that the core doctrine of Mahayana tathagata-garbha school is just the combination of dependent arising and sunyata.The fourth chapter explains the core ideal of Hua-yen philosophy, it’s the main part of this thesis. The first section analyze the depth interpretation of Hua-yen philosophy about Madhyamika,from which we can clearly find that the kernel of Hua-yen philosophy is just the sunyata of Madhyamika. By a particular manner, Hua-yen philosophy explains the theory of dependent arising as a kind of universal inner-relational ontology, The second section focus on two basic topics in the philosophy of Yogacara which are "three kinds of self-nature" and "six kinds of meaning of Vijnana’s seeds", we’ll show the creative explanation of Hua-yen philosophy on the these two topics. The third section will deeply analyze the Hua-yen philosophy’s explanations about the concept of "Arising from the original nature" and the question of "original enlightenment" which are the core ideas of the thought of tathagata-garbha. At last,we will explain the foundmental concepts of Hua-yen philosophy such as "six characteristics of dependent arising","ten kinds of profound doctrine" and "endless dependent arising", through which we can prove Hua-yen philosophy’s interpretation about Avatamsaka Sutra just built on the philosophy of Madhyamika, Yogacara and the thought of tathagata-garbha.