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Extant discussions of Buddhist mereology give minimal attention to the soteriological significance of denying the reality of wholes. This is unfortunate, because the connection between mereology and soteriological is both significant and problematic. The connection is significant, because it supports an argument for the unreality of composite wholes that does not depend upon any claim about the nature of wholes. The connection is also problematic, because some Buddhists endorse the soteriological relevance of mereology despite admitting that composite wholes are real. I address these issues by reviewing early Pāli Buddhist attitudes toward the soteriological significance of mereology, developing an argument for the unreality of wholes from the work of Buddhaghosa, and explicating an alternative approach from the Chinese tradition of Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism that calls into question some common assumptions about parts and wholes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pei Xiu 裴休 (791–864) was a literati follower of Buddhist teachers, among whom the two most eminent were Zongmi 宗密 (780–841) and Huangbo Xiyun 黃檗希運 (?–850). These two teachers had notably different spiritual orientations: one was the synthesizer of Chan and Huayan teachings, the other a member of the more radical Hongzhou 洪州 school. Rather than passively patronizing Buddhist teachers, Pei Xiu served as an active agent of his own religiosity and influenced Buddhist communities broadly. Through examining Pei Xiu's Quanfa putixin wen 勸發菩提心文 [Essay Exhorting the Generation of Bodhicitta ], Chuanxin fayao 傳心法要 [Essentials of The Transmission of Mind], which he prefaced and edited, and his various prefaces and epitaphs written for Zongmi and other monks, this study scrutinizes the transformation of early Chinese Chan communities before they were reimagined as 'mature' and 'classical' in later times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist philosophy, and especially for those who aim to engage with the extensive question-and-answer section of the Rafter Dialogue. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, contextualizing Fazang's account of the characteristics with earlier Buddhist attempts to theorize the relationships between wholes and their parts; second, explicating the meaning Fazang likely attributes to each of the six characteristics; third, situating the characteristics as explicated within Fazang's broader metaphysical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on philosopher Fazang's coin-counter metaphor appear in the Avataṁsaka Sūtra as well as in treatises by the second patriarch of Huayan. It mentions purpose of explicating the metaphor in this way is to redress its relative neglect in discussions of Huayan doctrine and insights from Huayan metaphysics available and more accessible to a wider audience of metaphysician. It also mentions series of attempts to improve an originary example.

In recent years there has been a growing interest and reporting in the popular press and scientific literature on the topics of dark energy and dark matter. The mysterious, unknown nature of these entities has captured the cultural imagination. However, very little psychological reflection has been offered on the attention given to these phenomena. A brief overview of the human fascination with (and fear of ) the dark is presented as a backdrop to the current interest being given to realms of darkness in modern cosmology. Beginning with the hypothesis of dark matter in the 1930s based on astronomical observations of galaxies, this fascination has grown. More recently the even more mysterious dark energy, a repulsive force opposite of gravity that creates regions of void, has come to the forefront of cosmological studies. This dark energy is purported to be one of the shaping elements in the evolution of the large scale structure of the universe. The psychological significance of the scientific imagery generated by these studies is heightened when a comparison with neural patterns in mammalian brains is made. Furthermore, the model of the universe emerging from these studies has striking parallels with certain schools of Buddhism, especially those that value nothingness as the key to reality. Jungian psychology is shown to be well positioned to appreciate the paradigm shift represented by the confluence of these visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commentary to the Yuanjue jing in Old Uigur, which was published by Kudara (1992) and Zhang - Zieme (2012), includes unique teachings and quotations ascribed to the Great Master SYLW, whose name apparently derives from a Chinese honorific title for eminent Buddhist monks, which has remained unidentified so far. This paper examines the nature of this commentary by tracing the Great Master SYLW in Chinese Buddhist texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including American philosophy, Confucian values and Huayan Buddhism.

Huayan Buddhist philosophers and John Dewey share a perspective on emptiness or dependent origination. This article compares Dewey's local, contextual, and relational metaphysics with Huayan thinkers' use of the metaphor of Indra's jewel net to extend their relational metaphysics to an infinite extent. Huayan thinkers base their ethics of compassion on the recognition of the infinite relatedness of all things. Dewey prefers constructing social institutions that foster experiences that are reliably aesthetically unified. This dispute is significant because pragmatism and Buddhism both provide promising ethical positions based on the understanding of persons as temporally limited and relational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the transcendental interpretation of Chinese philosophical scholar Mou Zongsan of Huayan Buddhism. According to Mou, the understanding of Huayan on Buddha-spiritual-body presupposes the True and Constant Mind or the Buddha-Womb Self-Existing Pure Mind. Moreover, Mou states that the teachings of Huayan on six senses of the door of causes, the doctrine of the dharmas-realm of Huayan were reality manifested by reflecting Buddha-spiritual-body.

This is an attempt to explain, in a way familiar to contemporary ways of thinking about mereology, why someone might accept some prima facie puzzling remarks by Fazang, such as his claims that the eye of a lion is its ear and that a rafter of a building is identical to the building itself. These claims are corollaries of the Huayan Buddhist thesis that everything is part of everything else, and it is intended here to show that there is a rational basis for this thesis that involves a nonstandard notion of parthood and, importantly, that does not violate the principle of noncontradiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Brook Ziporyn on the Tiantai Buddhist conceptions of mind and thought, one by Nicholaos Jones on the Huayan schools which were advocates of Yogacara and one by Guang Xing on criticisms of Buddhists being unfilial.

The article discusses how the Yogacara philosophy was evaluated through the context of Huayan Buddhism. It mentions that Huayan Buddhism is regarded as one of the most philosophical schools of Chinese Buddhism which represents the elite-scholar Buddhism under the Tang Dynasty. It cites that other teachings such as Madhyamaka, Yogacar and Tathagatagarbha had an influence on the way Huayan scholars apprehends and interprets the Mahayana scripture.

The article discusses the responses on the problem of the one over the many in the contrast of Indian and Huayan Buddhists. It mentions that most Indian Buddhists infer that wholes are unreal while Huayan Buddhists argues that the inherence relation between a whole and its collection of parts does not need to be eternal. It cites that the Nyaya-Vaisesika School's thesis says that two different distinct entities can occupy the same space simultaneously, provided that there is inherence.

The article presents an analysis on the Suchness vasana concept, a Chinese Buddhism philosophy, as applied by the Huayan school in China. It cites that the historic Huiyan supposes Suchness to create its rival avidya, that develops deluded mind. Huayan school's patriarch Faxiang, deriving his though on the "Yijing" theory, contends that Suchness does not establish dharmas or phenomenal particulars and stays unchanged despite the conditions. It asserts that Suchness dynamically makes the world.

In Plato's Parmenides, Socrates proposes a 'Day' analogy to express one possible model of part/whole relations. His analogy is swiftly rejected and replaced with another analogy, that of the 'Sail'. In this paper, it is argued that there is a profound difference between these two analogies and that the 'Day' represents a distinct way to think about part/whole relations. This way of thinking, I argue, is the standard way of thinking in East Asian Buddhism. Plato's 'Day' analogy can then be used to illuminate the meaning of an opaque but very important concept in East Asian Buddhism: li, which in this paper is developed as a modal concept of 'Wholeness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The John Cage that the world came to know made his dramatic entrance in 1952, a year that Cage scholars generally refer to as his landmark year. Artistically, three of his works, in particular, stand as points of arrival, Music of Changes (1951), 4’33” (1952), and the multi-media Black Mountain Piece (1952), but these works could also be seen as important vehicles through which Cage conveyed his new vision shaped by Eastern philosophies and Zen, particularly as taught by the Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki. Of the teachings that Suzuki had imparted to his American audience, Cage seemed to have appropriated at least three: kegon, satori (enlightenment), śūnyatā (Emptiness). I will examine Cage's use of them by focusing on two religious texts that Cage had read and known: (1) the Heart Sutra for its key teaching on Emptiness; (2) The Ten Oxherding Pictures, a classic Zen pictorial depiction of the stages of Zen discipline that a Bodhisattva necessarily undergoes. I show that for all of Cage's lofty intentions, he had only romanced the idea of Shunyata in particular, and Buddhism in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts a paradigmatic comparison between the fourfold worldview of Hua-yen Buddhism and the postmodern philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard. Employing a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces as a structural underpinning of these two philosophies, the essay illuminates the liberating nature of Hua-yen Buddhism and postmodern thought together with the shadow of skepticism involved in endorsing a vision for a poly-lingual existence. Despite human beings' desire for a totalitarian vision hidden in every aspect of our discourse, Hua-yen Buddhism and postmodern thought demand us to envision the world of the 'inconceivable' in which the diversity of existence raises its own voice beyond the regulating force of our society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the worldview of Gary Snyder in which a certain ecological consciousness leads to a new definition of humanism and of democracy. Ways in which Snyder has been a cultural bridge between East and West since the 1950s; Interest in Hua-yen Buddhism; Transition from a human-centered to an all-creature-centered nature.

Compares the organic process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and the teachings of Chinese Hua-yen Buddhism. Visions of reality exemplified by the teachings; Parallelism between Whitehead's microcosmic-macrocosmic metaphysics and Tendai Buddhist philosophy.

Discusses the instrumentality of Hua-yen Buddhism in laying the conceptual foundations for virtually all subsequent East Asian Buddhism. Treatise on the five teachings; Frequency of the concept bodhicitta in the writings of Fa-tsang; Way of understanding Fa-tsang's point.

This essay discusses the works of architect Adolf Loos. It relates the secrets of Loos' buildings to the cosmology of the mirror as expounded by the Kegon sect. According to the author, Loos' apartment houses, namely the Nakano House, Okamuro House, and Sugiyama House, show control and a strong sensibility. It is noted that the architecture of Loos had a strongly classical feeling, which related to the gravity of Egyptian sanctuaries.

Allen Ginsberg's poetry, poetics or cultural activism; Jack Kerouac's prose, poetry and his method of composition; Gary Snyder's environmental and Buddhist consciousness and bioregional ethos, or the opening made by the Beats for Eastern spirituality in the west are of intrinsic value and will be for generations, this paper seeks to posit that it is Michael McClure's use of Projective Verse, that future generations of writers and readers will come to appreciate as that movement's spiritual legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]