Avatamsaka Sutra

[illarraza]

"They also form this thought: `I should accept all sufferings for the
sake of all sentient beings, and enable them to escape from the abyss of
immeasurable woes of birth and death. I should accept all suffering for
the sake of all sentient beings in all worlds, in all states of misery,
forever and ever, and still always cultivate the foundations of goodness
for the sake of all beings. Why? I would rather take all this suffering
on myself than to allow sentient beings to fall into hell. I should be
a hostage in those perilous places - hells, animal realms, the nether
world, etc. - as a ransom to rescue all sentient beings in states of woe
and enable them to gain liberation." (Flower Ornament Scripture pp.
534-535)

Illarraza

[illarraza]

Could someone please verify that the following passage comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra:

"In this world there are three wrong viewpoints. If one clings to these
viewpoints, then all things in this world are but to be denied. First, some
say that all human experience is based on destiny; second, some hold that
everything is created by God and controlled by His will; third, some say
that everything happens by chance without having any cause or condition.

If all has been decided by destiny, both good deeds and evil deeds are
predetermined, weal and woe are predestined; nothing would exist that has
not been foreordained. Then all human plans and efforts for improvement and
progress would be in vain and humanity would be without hope.

The same is true of the other viewpoints, for , if everything in the last
resort is in the hands of an unknowable God, or of blind chance, what hope
has humanity except in submission? It is no wonder that people holding
these conceptions lose hope and neglect efforts to act wisely and to avoid
evil.

In fact, these three conceptions or viewpoints are all wrong: everything
is a succession of appearance whose source is the accumulation of causes
and conditions."

illarraza

[Michael_Dorfman]

Could someone please verify that the following passage comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra:

It does not. It is from a book published by BDK, entitled "The Teachings of Buddha", which summarizes Buddhist doctrine. You can find the appropriate excerpt here: http://books.google.no/books?id=QFvC1w-Ef20C&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false

[plwk]

http://www.newhuayen.com/page33.html

This is interesting and strange:
Their Forty Second Patriarch of the Hsien-shou Hua-yen and Ts'i-en Schools, the Ven Master Hai Yun Ji Meng & Swami Rajarshi Muni (who's listed in their 'Who's who' lineage) and this curious video featured in their background featured on a group known as 'Chinese Han Transmission Tantrayana Buddhism-Holy Tantra Jing Gang Dhyana Buddhism' with one known as 'Holy Patriarch Bhagavan Zhi-Ji Vimlakirti Ahdharma Buddha Patriarch, Elder Dharma Lord Jing Wu.'

[illarraza]

Could someone please verify that the following passage comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra:

It does not. It is from a book published by BDK, entitled "The Teachings of Buddha", which summarizes Buddhist doctrine. You can find the appropriate excerpt here: http://books.google.no/books?id=QFvC1w-Ef20C&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thanks,
Illarraza

[Greg]

It looks like they are mixing a bunch of Hindu stuff into their situation, on top of the Huayen/Vajrayana blend they already have going.

[Will]

Could someone please verify that the following passage comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra:

It does not. It is from a book published by BDK, entitled "The Teachings of Buddha", which summarizes Buddhist doctrine. You can find the appropriate excerpt here: http://books.google.no/books?id=QFvC1w-Ef20C&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Teaching of Buddha does summarize, but the list of sources in the back of the book says:

Chapter 3 Page 42 Line 22 Avatamsaka-sutra 22, Dasabhumika

So the quote does come from the Avatamsaka. Whether from ch. 26 the Ten Grounds or folio 22 in the Chinese, I am not sure and have not tried to find it.

[Will]

When the bodhisattva generates the will to seek bodhi,
this is not such as is without causes and without conditions.
Developing pure faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—
It is on account of this that one initiates such vast resolve.

One does not seek the five desires, the position of a king,
wealth, personal pleasure, or great fame.
It is solely in order to forever extinguish beings’ sufferings
and benefit those in the world that one generates the resolve.

Constantly wishing to benefit beings and make them happy,
one adorns the lands, makes offerings to the Buddhas,
takes on and upholds right Dharma, and cultivates all wisdom.
It is to achieve realization of bodhi that one generates the resolve.

With an ever pure deep mind of faith and understanding,
one reverently honors and esteems all buddhas
while also doing so with the Dharma and the Sangha.
As an ultimately sincere offering, one generates the resolve.

It is due to profound faith in the Buddha and Buddha’s Dharma
as well as to faith in the path practiced by the sons of the Buddha
and faith in the unsurpassable great bodhi.
On account of this, the bodhisattva generates the initial resolve.

Faith is the source of the Path and the mother of merit.
It brings about the growth and nourishment of all good dharmas,
cuts away the net of doubts, causes escape from the river of love,
and opens forth and displays the unsurpassed path to nirvāṇa.

[LastLegend]

[Will]

From chapter 18 - the Ten Paramitas, with a little different look at the last four:

There are ten types of dharmas that cause purity in whatsoever is practiced by bodhisattvas. What then are those ten? They are:
First, abandoning all wealth and fulfilling beings’ wishes.
Second, upholding precepts purely and without any damaging transgressions.
Third, inexhaustible pliancy and patience.
Fourth, never retreating from the diligent cultivation of all practices.
Fifth, maintaining thought free of confusion or disorderliness through using the power of right mindfulness.
Sixth, distinguishing and completely knowing all of the countlessly many dharmas.
Seventh, cultivating all of the practices, yet remaining unattached to them.
Eighth, maintaining a mind which is as immovable as the king of mountains.
Ninth, engaging in the liberation of beings on a vast scale, serving them like a bridge.
Tenth, realizing that all beings are of the same singular essential nature as all Tathagatas.

[udawa]

From chapter 18 - the Ten Paramitas, with a little different look at the last four:

There are ten types of dharmas that cause purity in whatsoever is practiced by bodhisattvas. What then are those ten? They are:
First, abandoning all wealth and fulfilling beings’ wishes.
Second, upholding precepts purely and without any damaging transgressions.
Third, inexhaustible pliancy and patience.
Fourth, never retreating from the diligent cultivation of all practices.
Fifth, maintaining thought free of confusion or disorderliness through using the power of right mindfulness.
Sixth, distinguishing and completely knowing all of the countlessly many dharmas.
Seventh, cultivating all of the practices, yet remaining unattached to them.
Eighth, maintaining a mind which is as immovable as the king of mountains.
Ninth, engaging in the liberation of beings on a vast scale, serving them like a bridge.
Tenth, realizing that all beings are of the same singular essential nature as all Tathagatas.

Thanks for this Will. Where does the translation come from?

D

[Will]

udawa, This is an from early draft by Bhikshu Dharmamitra who is working on a complete translation of the sutra.

[Leo Rivers]

This is an from early draft by Bhikshu Dharmamitra who is working on a complete translation of the sutra.

Wow. Which version? I have just been reading my way through Reflecting Mirrors about the Avatamsaka. [Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007.] I have read a few chapters in Avatamsaka Buddhism in East Asia: Huayan, Kegon, Flower Ornament Buddhism. Origins and Adaptation of a Visual Culture (Asiatische Forschungen) [Hardcover] Roberto Gimello too.

And is he still doing a Dasabhumika-Sutra translation? In another thread he seemed to be viewing several commentaries on it. And my thought is "how is he going to do all this?" Are they all going concurrently or is there an order he is tackling them? And how is his health? He seems to be a one man Cleary Committee.

[Will]

The standard Śikṣānanda one.

The translator's email, as his Kalavinka Press site mentions, is kalavinka2@yahoo.com

[Will]

All realms of beings
dwell within the three periods of time.
all beings of the three periods of time
dwell within the five aggregates.

For the aggregates, it is karmic actions which constitute their root.
For the karmic actions, it is the mind which constitutes their root.
Mind dharmas are comparable to mere conjurations.
So too it is with the world itself.

The world is not self-created
nor is it created by something other.
Nonetheless it succeeds in having an establishment
and also succeeds in having a destruction.

Although the world has an establishment
and although the world has a destruction,
if one has a completely penetrating understanding of the world,
one should not then speak of these two factors.

What is it that constitutes the world?
And what is it that is not the world?
What is the world and what is not the world
are merely distinctions in name.

It is the dharmas of the three periods of time and the five aggregates
which are said to constitute the world.
Their extinction is that which is not the world.
Such matters as these are merely false names.

How is it that one speaks of the aggregates?
What nature do the aggregates possess?
The nature of the aggregates cannot be extinguished.
Therefore one speaks of their having no production.

Given that this is the way it is with beings,
this is also the way it is with the Buddhas.
The Buddha and the Dharma of all buddhas
are all entirely devoid of any inherently existent nature.

If there be someone who is able to know these dharmas
in a way which accords with reality and is free of inverted views,
then he will always see directly before him
that person who is possessed of all knowing and all seeing.

[Will]

The Bodhisattvas then presented to the Buddha these offering gifts superior even to those presented by the devas, offering up then all sorts of jeweled canopies born from their coursing in the pāramitās, all sorts of floral curtains born from their pure understanding of the realms of all buddhas, all sorts of robes arising from the unproduced-dharmas patience, all sorts of bell nets produced through their unimpeded thought developed through accessing the vajra dharmas, all sorts of solid incenses produced from their thought that understands all dharmas as like mere conjurations, all buddhas’ many-jeweled marvelous throne produced from their minds’ fathoming all buddha realms everywhere as constituting the throne of the Tathāgata, all sorts of jeweled banners produced from their untiring will to make offerings to the Buddha...

[Will]

Just as the power of a single mind
Is able to produce all kinds of thoughts,
So too, the Buddha’s single body
Universally manifests all Buddhas.

Commentary: [by Master Hua]

Just as the power of a single mind is able to produce all kinds of thoughts, so too, the Buddha’s single body universally manifests all Buddhas. “A single mind” refers to the Mind King [the 8th Consciousness]. “All kinds of thoughts” are those Interactive With the Mind. “The Buddha's single body” is just the true Dharma body of the Buddha, while “all Buddhas” refers to the transformation bodies. The Mind King is able to produce all kinds of dharmas which pertain to the mind--those Interactive With the Mind. The single, true Dharma body of the Buddha is like the previously mentioned Mind King. It’s able to everywhere make appear all the response and transformation bodies of all Buddhas, just like the Mind King produces Dharmas Interactive With the Mind. So all these Buddhas universally manifest and yet are produced from the Buddha’s true Dharma body.