http://hokai.info/2007/12/best-wishes.html#links

BTW, he has a great blog which I recommend highly. One of the few really good ones out there. Enuf said.

Suhrawardi

Trained in Avicennan Peripateticism, Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154–1191) became the founder of an Illuminationist (ishraqi) philosophical tradition in the Islamic East. Since none of his works were translated into Latin, he remained unknown in the West; but from the 13^th century onwards, his works were studied in a number of philosophical circles in the Islamic East. In the mid-20^th century, Henry Corbin worked relentlessly to edit and study his writings, which led to renewed interest in Suhrawardi’s works and thought, especially in the later part of the 20^th century.

Suhrawardi provided an original Platonic criticism of the dominant Avicennan Peripateticism of the time in the fields of logic, epistemology, psychology, and metaphysics, while simultaneously elaborating his own epistemological (logic and psychology) and metaphysical (ontology and cosmology) Illuminationist theories. His new epistemological perspective led him to critique the Avicennan Peripatetic theory of definition, introduce a theory of ‘presential’ knowledge, elaborate a complex ontology of lights, and add a fourth ‘imaginal’ world.

• 1. Life and Works
  • 1.1 Life
  • 1.2 Works
  • 1.3 Influences on Suhrawardi
• 2. Logic
  • 2.1 Role of Logic
  • 2.2 Definition
• 3. Physics
  • 3.1 Psychology
  • 3.2 Epistemology
• 4. Metaphysics
  • 4.1 Essence and Existence
  • 4.2 Ontology of Lights
  • 4.3 Imaginal World
• 5. Politics and Ethics
• 6. Legacy of the Illuminationist Tradition
  • 6.1 Post-Suhrawadian Traditions
  • 6.2 Historiography
• Bibliography
  • Primary Sources: Editions, Translations, Commentaries
  • Secondary Sources
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Works

1.1 Life

Biographical data on the life of Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi, the ‘master of illumination’ (shaykh al-ishraq), is scarce. Born in the northwestern Iranian village of Suhraward in 1154, he pursued his education in nearby Maraghah with the likes of Majd al-Din al-Jili, one of the teachers of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d.1209). He then traveled to Isfahan, where he studied with the logician Zahir al-Farisi with whom he read a text on logic written by Ibn Sahlan al-Sawi (d.ca.1170). Suhrawardi then embarked on a journey that led him to Anatolia. Shams al-Din al-Shahrazuri (d.ca.1288) identifies this period as his quest for spiritual guidance, a period when he would have met a number of Sufi masters, such as Fakhr al-Din al-Maridini (d.1198), and would have sought patrons among the local rulers of Anatolia.

In 1183, Suhrawardi arrived in Aleppo, the year Saladin (d.1193) conquered that city and handed it over to his son al-Zahir (d.1216). Suhrawardi, a Shafi‘i Sunni, made a name for himself among religious scholars of the city, like Iftikhar al-Din. He eventually managed to secure an audience at the palace and to befriend al-Zahir. In 1186, he completed his most important work, the Philosophy of Illumination (hereafter, PI), at the age of thirty-three. Unfortunately, he also succeeded in alienating the powerful religious elite of Aleppo on whom the Ayyubids depended for the legitimacy of their rule over the city.

A combination of religious and political factors led to Suhrawardi’s downfall. On the one hand, he was accused of holding heretical beliefs, a vague charge easily sustained with pre-Islamic Persian names and symbols that some of his works contain, his claim to divine-like inspiration, and his questioning, in light of God’s omnipotence, the logical finality of Prophethood. On the other hand, his earlier and close relationships with the rulers of the recently conquered Artuqids of southwest Anatolia or with al-Zahir, the Ayyubid ruler, may have been interpreted as political intrigue. In the end, Suhrawardi’s fate was sealed with accusations of heresy (rather than treason). Biographers and historians remain at odds over the exact charges and course of events that led to his execution at the end of 1191 (or early1192) (Marcotte 2001a).

1.2 Works

Suhrawardi’s works are traditionally divided into four categories: several early works, a number of mystical or allegorical texts, many written in Persian (Suhrawardi 1976; 1993c; 1999b), minor works which often present Peripatetic ideas and methods, but which also contain distinctive Illuminationist theses, e.g., his Temples of Light (Suhrawardi 1996), and, finally, his four major Arabic works which Suhrawardi intended to be studied in the following order: the Intimations (cf. Ibn Kammuna 2003), the Oppositions (Suhrawardi 1993a), the Paths and Conversations (Suhrawardi 1993a), and the Philosophy of Illumination (Suhrawardi 1993b; 1999a; 1986). In the latter work, Suhrawardi developed his Illuminationist philosophy in detail, wherein the symbolism of Light becomes central in his reconfigurations of cosmology and ontology.

Needless to say, such a classification, as well as the theory of two distinct periods in Suhrawardi’s life and works — Peripatetic, followed by Illuminationist — poses some difficulties. The classification may well be merely heuristic, as it fails to account for a number of works that expound Peripatetic principles and methods and yet include a number of Illuminationist principles, e.g., in his Tablets Dedicated to ‘Imad al-Din (Suhrawardi 1976: 99-116) and in his Temples of Light (Suhrawardi 1996; 1976: 139-47). Although Suhrawardi mentions that he was “once zealous in defense of the Peripatetic path” (PI, 108.8-9), a period during which time he may have written such works as the Flashes of Light (a précis of Avicennan Peripatetic theses) whose attribution to a specifically identifiable ‘pre-inspiration’ period remains problematic; The Flashes of Light, however, mentions both the Intimations and the Philosophy of Illumination as completed works (Suhrawardi 1993a: 70.3-7). Although Suhrawardi asserts that his Intimations was a work written according to the Peripatetic tradition, the work contains some of his more distinctive Illuminationist positions (Suhrawardi 1993a: 70-7 and 105-21).

Suhrawardi composed most of his treatises over a very short span of time, most probably during the course of about ten years. The brevity of this period would not have left him much time to undergo a radical transformation through two different and successive stages in which he would have espoused two distinct styles and modes of thought. For Suhrawardi, a great number of valid Peripatetic principles remain necessary for understanding his Illuminationist Philosophy. Henry Corbin (d.1978) noted that there may not have been a purely Peripatetic period, though Suhrawardi confessed he once defended the Peripatetic approach. Very few of his works can, in fact, be dated; whereas a number of his works were written simultaneously.

Suhrawardi’s works circulated mainly within the traditional philosophical circles of learning of the Islamic East until the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries when, in the wake of the works of Carra de Vaux, Max Horten (1912), Louis Massignon, Otto Spies and Khatak (1935), and Helmut Ritter, the French Iranologist Henry Corbin began to study and edit a great number of his works. A first volume, published in Istanbul in 1945, contained the metaphysics of Suhrawardi’s first three major Arabic works (Suhrawardi 1993a). In 1952, Corbin then edited Suhrawardi’s magnum opus, the Arabic Philosophy of Illumination (Suhrawardi 1993b; 1999a; 1986), together with two minor works. Corbin then went on to write his major study on Suhrawardi et les platoniciens de Perse (Corbin 1971; cf. Abu Rayyan 1969). In 1970, Seyyed Hossein Nasr edited fourteen of Suhrawardi’s Persian texts (two attributed to him), many of which are allegorical or mystical in nature (Suhrawardi 1993c).

1.3 Influences on Suhrawardi

Mapping Suhrawardi’s intellectual trajectory and identifying the sources which he may have used has proven exceedingly difficult (Walbridge 2000, 2001; cf. Gutas 2003). Suhrawardi was undoubtedly instructed in the Avicennan Peripatetic tradition (in Maragha and Isfahan), but this would have also included the study of the ideas of Aristotle, Plato and, most importantly, of the Neoplatonists and earlier philosophers who wrote in Arabic. Avicenna’s (d.1037) works were undoubtedly central. Much work still needs to be done to assess the real significance of Avicenna’s Discussions (1992) and his Notes on Aristotle’s De anima (1984) on Suhrawardi, as well as the nature of the influence exerted on him by post-Avicennan philosophers, in particular, Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi (d.ca.1150), the original, yet eclectic critic of Avicenna’s logic, psychology and metaphysics, and the logician Ibn Sahlan al-Sawi.

The influence of both Plato and Aristotle remains readily identifiable in Suhrawardi’s works. Attempts have been made to trace the Greek influences of such figures as Empedocles, Pythagoras, and the Stoics, an exercise which has led to Suhrawardi being labeled a ‘Pythagoreanizing Neoplatonist’ (Walbridge 2000; 2001), but with more or less success (see Gutas 2003: 308). Notwithstanding Suhrawardi’s frequent appeals to the authority of Plato, another, more fruitful area of research might rest with such works as the Arabic Theology of Aristotle (a paraphrase of parts of Books IV-VI of Plotinus’ Enneads), in particular, the passages it contains from Enneads IV, 8.1, where the names of many philosophers of the Greek tradition important to Suhrawardi are mentioned.

Charting Suhrawardi’s intellectual journey and encounters with mysticism, ancient Greek Gnosticism and Hermeticism, or ancient Persian Zoroastrian traditions, to whose symbols he often appeals, remains exceedingly difficult. In addition, no one has as yet fully explored the possible influences of Ismailism or Sufism on Suhrawardi; his Illuminationist doctrine could have more affinity with Ismaili thought (such as the hierarchical notion of being in the works of 10^th century Abu Ya‘qub al-Sijistani) than with the doctrines of classical Sufis whom he claims to be following (Landolt 1987), although similarities with certain Sufi theories have been noted (Landolt 2007). Medieval biographers, on the other hand, readily reported Suhrawardi’s mystical inclination, his association with mystics, his ascetic practices and (hagiographic) wondrous deeds. Suhrawardi himself considered spiritual exercises a necessary preparation for the advent of presential knowledge and vision of the Lights. He often appealed to ancient Zoroastrian motifs, terminology and mythical figures, even Mazdean theology, e.g., in his Invocations and Prayers (Suhrawardi, 1976). His appeal to angels as embodiments of the intellective principles, for example, shares much with ancient Zoroastrian angelology (Corbin 1972: 111-3, 124-5), but also with the angelology found in Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi’s Considerations (1939, vol. 2: 157; cf. Pines 1979: 253-5), the latter, however, being devoid of any ancient Persian symbolism. Without any clear historical filiations to particular textual traditions, one can only rely on Suhrawardi’s own claims to having intended to provide a synthesis of these ancient Western and Eastern intellectual traditions. Why Suhrawardi “presented himself as following these ancient philosophers, and especially Plato, rather than Avicenna” has yet to be elucidated and adequately explained (Gutas 2003: 309).

2. Logic

2.1 Role of Logic

Very little has been written about Suhrawardi’s logical treatises or his logic in general. Ziai (1990) provides perhaps the only general overview of Suhrawardi’s logic, his criticism of Peripatetic (Aristotelian) essentialist definitions and his own elaboration of an Illuminationist theory of definition. While Suhrawardi includes logical discussions in his major Arabic works, in his Philosophy of Illumination, he ventures a criticism and a restructuring of some elements of Avicennan Peripatetic logic.

The Philosophy of Illumination does not follow the customary Avicennan tripartite division into logic, physics, and metaphysics which was standard in Post-Avicennan Peripatetic works. Instead, Suhrawardi begins with a small number of useful ‘Rules of Thought’ (PI, 14-105) that cover not only logic, but also elements of physics and metaphysics which, according to his 13^th century commentator Shahrazuri, are rules derived from the Avicennan Peripatetic corpus (Ziai 1990: 41-76). Suhrawardi first introduces elements of semantics, where he discusses problems of meaning, conception, assent and the nature, the definition and the description of ‘reality’ (haqiqa), the latter being equated by Qutb al-Din Shirazi (d.1311) with quiddity (mahiyya). Suhrawardi also discusses accidents, universals (adopting a more or less nominalist position), innate (fitriyya) and non innate human knowledge and the notion of definition and its elements (PI, 8.20-11.9). He then proceeds with short discussions on the conditions of proofs, on defining propositions, their classes and modalities, and includes a number of discussions on contradiction, conversion, and some syllogisms (reductio ad absurdum and demonstrative syllogisms). Suhrawardi identifies some errors of formal and material logic with the logic of the Peripatetics (an epitome of the Sophistical Refutations). He even includes brief discussions on dialectics, rhetoric, and poetics whose premises he considers non-scientific and thus part of non demonstrative syllogisms (Ziai 1990: 41-74). He criticizes the Peripatetics’ understanding of negation, as well as the second and third figures of the syllogism. He reduces all types of propositions to necessary affirmative propositions and discusses some of the differences between the Peripatetics and the Illuminationists regarding a number of sophisms. Suhrawardi even revisits the classical theory of the ten Categories which (as with the Stoics) he lumps together and reduces to five: substance, quality, quantity, relation, and motion, of which the latter four are accidental categories. The Categories now become ‘degrees of intensity’ (or perfection) of light that entities possess and that they emit, rather than being merely distinct ‘ontic entities’ (Ziai 2003: 452). As such, the degree of intensity (with its corollary ‘weakness’) of light becomes a property of substances as well as of accidents.

2.2 Definition

Suhrawardi criticizes the Peripatetic theory of definition and the inductive approach it advocates as a foundation for scientific knowledge and demonstration. He uses logical and semantic arguments to question ‘essentialist’ types of definitions (Aristotelian) on which Avicenna’s own ‘complete (essentialist) definition’ depends. He rejects the claims that it is possible to obtain a complete definition that could encompass all the essential constituents needed to lead to the knowledge of that which is previously unknown and in need of a definition (Ziai 1990: 77-114). Suhrawardi writes that “it is clear that it is impossible for a human being to construct an essential definition in the way the Peripatetics require—a difficulty which even their master [Aristotle] admits. Therefore, we have definition only by means of things that specify conjunction” (PI, 11.5-9). He insists that a definition should enumerate, in some kind of unitary formula, all the essential elements of the described object. He therefore includes elements of definition by extension (enumeration of members of a ‘class’) and of definition by intension (enumeration of defining property or properties), for example, that “the essence of man, which is the truth underlying the symbol ‘man’, is recoverable only in the subject. The act of ‘recovery’ is the translation of the symbol to its equivalent in the consciousness or the self of the subject” (Ziai 2003: 448-9). Suhrawardi explains his ‘conceptualist’ notion of definition at greater length in his Paths and Conversations (Ziai 1990: 110). His epistemological critique of the Peripatetic theory of definition is undoubtedly inspired by Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi’s own critical evaluation of the Isagoge which was developed in his Considerations (1939: vol. 1, 55-7; cf. Ziai 1990: 183-4), but also by Suhrawardi’s own understanding of the epistemic role of self-knowledge.

Suhrawardi proceeds by introducing his reformulation of an Illuminationist theory of definition that signals what some have identified as a ‘Platonic’ or ‘Neoplatonic’ turn (Ziai 1990: 114-128). Now, only direct experience guarantees acquisition of true knowledge, such that epistemological considerations are at the heart of his reconceptualization of the definition. Suhrawardi’s theory of definition thus builds on a Platonic epistemology. Knowledge of the reality of things occurs through the direct apprehension of the intrinsic light-nature (the thing as it is) of all entities (see metaphysics below). Direct knowledge occurs through ‘vision-illumination’, as a person realizes that what is to be defined becomes available to one’s self through self-consciousness. At such time, the soul becomes directly aware of the reality of that which is to be defined. The soul is then able to grasp directly these essences whose elements can then be translated using proofs and demonstrations to develop a discursive type of knowledge about that original apperception of reality.

Suhrawardi writes that, in and of itself, light is not in need of any definition, because all that is required is for light to be experienced, as there is nothing more evident than light. In his Paths and Conversations, Suhrawardi writes that to define something is to actually ‘see’ the thing as it really is (Ziai 1990: 104-14). Suhrawardi begins the second part of his Philosophy of Illumination by stating that “anything in existence that requires no definition or explanation is evident. Since there is nothing more evident than light, there is nothing less in need of definition” (PI, 76), thereby establishing the centrality of the concept of light for his Illuminationist ontology and epistemology. Suhrawardi argues that only direct intuitive experience can lead to knowledge of the reality (haqiqa) of things, which definitions can only attempt to describe and explain via a posteriori rational investigations or demonstrations (Ziai 1990: 81). Qutb al-Din Shirazi noted that Illuminationist epistemology relied on this type of personal and intuitive knowledge, itself not in need of any definition (Ziai 1990: 133).

3. Physics

Suhrawardi’s Intimations, Paths and Conversations, and Oppositions contain substantial sections on physics, although all have remained unstudied. At present, only the physics of the Intimations has been edited, together with a commentary by Ibn Kammuna (2003). In the Philosophy of Illumination, Suhrawardi deals mainly with some general principles of physics, but not with any kind of detail. With his philosophy of lights, he manages, nonetheless, to reconfigure some elements of physics. He criticizes, for example, the Peripatetic hylomorphic division of matter and form, since hylomorphism becomes incompatible with the ontic luminosity of reality. Immaterial entities and material bodies that are composed of varying degrees of light remain ‘unitary concrete entities’. The physical world is composed of dusky substances with dark accidents, while self-subsistent magnitude appears to replace prime matter which, like a number of traditional physical notions, becomes a mere mental concept that has no reality outside the mind. It is no longer the perception of the form of objects, but their constitutive lights that becomes the true object of knowledge (Walbridge 2000: 22-3).

3.1 Psychology

Suhrawardi equally revisits Avicenna’s psychology. The soul remains an immaterial, self-subsisting, living, knowing substance, capable of ruling over the body, but now defined in terms of its luminosity. A relation of dominion and desire is established between the luminous substance of the soul and the tenebrous substance of the body. Between the two, the psychic pneuma functions as an intermediary that is able to receive images, forms or ‘icons’ of metaphysical realities that it then reflects and manifests into the soul.

Vision remains the most important sense. It is integrated into Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist theory of vision and incorporated into his theory of knowledge by presence. Suhrawardi begins with a criticism and a rejection of the prevalent ‘extramissive’ and ‘intromissive’ theories of vision on account of the materialist implications of the imprinting of forms in the material substratum of the eye. Although mediated by a physical organ, vision remains primarily an activity of the human soul, whereby the soul accesses directly the reality of the objects of vision. In the Philosophy of Illumination, the vision of physical objects requires, first, a ‘presential’ face-to-face encounter of that which perceives, both the physical organ and the human soul, and the illuminated object; second, the absence of obstacles between subject and object, often described in mystical terms as the absence of veils, whereby the soul becomes illuminated by the (substantial or accidental) light of the object; and finally, the presence of light, the necessary condition for the establishment of an Illuminationist relation. Vision thus unfolds simultaneously on two different planes, physical visual perception being reduced to the soul’s perception or awareness of the intrinsic and essential light possessed by the object. True vision does not require the presence and transmission of forms, but occurs through the soul’s ability to be aware of the essential light-reality of the object. Physics and metaphysics thus merge, as objects have the ability to receive and emit light, though only in an accidental manner, light being precisely what the light-soul, the Isfahbad-light, is able to perceive, whether it be through the senses, the intellect, intuition, or dreams (PI, 240.4-241.4).

Suhrawardi criticizes the localization of the internal faculties in different parts of the brain, as their localization in a material organ again naturalizes the process of representation. Internal faculties now become shadows (or functions) of the soul, lumped together into a single faculty responsible for representation. The Isfahbad-light principle accesses the supernal lights, rules over the active imagination, and reflects onto it the lights it receives. The faculty of representation perceives particulars, while the ruling light, the Isfahbad-light principle guaranteeing the unity of the soul, perceives universals and immaterial entities. The new emphasis on the totality of the soul, as the main perceiving entity, and the reduction of the Avicennan faculties traditionally responsible for representation to a single faculty could find their origin in Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi’s Considerations (1939, vol. 2: 318-24; cf. Pines 1979: 227-31). As for recollection, Suhrawardi defines it in a rather Platonic manner, whereby it becomes the retrieval of images (or concepts) whose existence lies in the ‘world of memorial’, accessible only to the luminous part of the soul.

Illumination becomes a metaphor for the intellective process. Illuminative relations are established between metaphysical active light principles and the human soul. Whereas only the (rational) Isfahbad-light part of the soul is immortal, Suhrawardi, nevertheless, notes the possibility for the imaginative faculty of souls that have not yet achieved perfection to perhaps survive, something that is required for the experiencing of divine retribution and for the perfecting of souls in the afterlife. The spheres of Ether and Zamharir, both situated below the Moon and associated with the world of elements, are identified as possible ‘pneumatic’ substrata for the posthumous activities of the imaginative faculties of those souls (Suhrawardi 1993c: 245.5-7). Suhrawardi may, therefore, be postulating the existence of an independent eschatological realm of representation. Finally, he does not appear to completely reject the possibility of some kind of transmigration of souls, especially of miserable souls, in spite of the fact that he does not overtly affirm it and that many other passages seem to deny it (Schmidtke 1999).

3.2 Epistemology

Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist epistemology revolves around his theory of ‘presential’ (huduri) knowledge that one is able to achieve through intuitive apprehension or contemplative vision (mushahada). Qutb al-Din Shirazi noted the importance of continuous practice of spiritual exercises for the occurrence of such intuitive and mystical aptitudes to access true reality. The ‘Plotinian’ (cf. Enneads V 3.6) Aristotle figure of Suhrawardi’s famous dream-vision found in his Intimations (cf. Walbridge 2000: 225-9) provides us with an illustrious example of what constitutes, for Suhrawardi, real knowledge based on immediate and intuitive knowledge. Whereas the Peripatetics had extolled intellection, Suhrawardi brings direct intuition or mystical contemplation (heightened by ascetic components) to the forefront, as an alternative — albeit more reliable — foundation of certainty. Intuitive knowledge provides access to a priori truths of which discursive knowledge can only be subsequently validated through a posteriori demonstrations (Dinani 1985; Ha’iri Yazdi 1992; Aminrazavi 1997; 2003).

Suhrawardi explores some of the issues raised by the hypothetical example of the ‘suspended’ person found in Avicenna’s Discussions and his Notes on Aristotle’s De anima, and his treatments of the soul in the Cure and the Salvation. He analyzes the notions of apperception and self-awareness and alludes to a pre-logical mode of perception that remains distinct from intellection. He discusses the primary awareness of the soul’s existence, its self-identity, the unmediated character of this particular type of knowledge and issues of individuation. He provides various arguments to demonstrate the existence of a type of knowledge that is self-evident, a priori and unmediated through any type of abstraction and representation of forms, whether it be through an image, a form, a notion or an attribute of the self. The perception of pain becomes paradigmatic of self-knowledge as unmediated perception, i.e., a non discursive, non-conceptual and non-propositional type of knowledge that, nonetheless, does constitute a mode of knowing distinct from discursive knowledge. Similar to pain, self-knowledge provides yet another illustration of the type of epistemic process that Suhrawardi considers being at the heart of intuitive knowledge. The unmediated nature of this process characterizes both the soul’s self-knowledge and the soul’s knowledge of supernal entities and the glimpses of the Light of Lights it may obtain (Marcotte 2006).

In Suhrawardi’s ‘science of lights’, the object of perception — light — cannot be known discursively, but only through an immediate presence or awareness of its luminosity. Mystical vision and contemplation operate through this intuitive process of knowing metaphysical lights. Individuals achieve such states through spiritual and ascetic practices that enable them to detach themselves from the darknesses of the world in their quest for the apperception of those lights. Intuitive knowledge thus constitutes a superior means of accessing the luminous reality and the divine realm of metaphysical truths.

Suhrawardi appears to spiritualize Avicenna’s Peripatetic epistemology with a greatly Platonic reading, now that the access to the ultimate reality is guaranteed through divine photic illumination. His classification of learned men according to their respective merits in discursive (philosophy) and intuitive (mystical) knowledge is revealing. Direct intuition or mystical contemplation plays a predominant role, even for prophets. Prophetic knowledge relies on the functions of the faculty of imagination, i.e., its mimetic function and its role in the particularization of universal truths. Prophecy becomes the ‘direct’ experience of the world of lights. Suhrawardi also introduces an independent imaginal realm to account for the ability of prophets and other gifted individuals to access divine metaphysical realms where imaginal forms already exist. Such individuals are either commissioned or uncommissioned to receive and transmit God’s message, the prophets being those who are among the privileged commissioned.

Direct intuition lies at the heart of Suhrawardi’s prophetology, inasmuch as only the most perfect sage who witnesses those truths, whether he be a prophet or not, deserves God’s viceregency, by being either a living proof or in occultation. Individuals who have access to those metaphysical lights can be invested with the viceregency of God, depending on the degree of their receptivity and the purity of their hearts. On the whole, however, the epistemic process by which mystics like Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d.874), Sahl al-Tustari (d.896) and Hallaj (d.912), sages like Zarathustra and Empedocles, philosophers like Pythagoras and Plato, or Suhrawardi himself have all had access to those metaphysical truths and divine realms remains quite similar to the process by which prophets have accessed the same divine and metaphysical truths. Liberated from the enslavement of the material world, their Isfahbad-light souls become receptive to illumination and perceive truths similar to those perceived by prophets. Prophetic and mystical knowledge only occur once the human soul is able to conjoin with those metaphysical lights. The soul is able to acquire a luminous and theurgic power, mediated by the active imagination which existentiates images and forms that have been reflected, in a mirror-like manner, onto it. It can imitate and reproduce forms that it has received from non-sensible realms, as it short-circuits all incoming external and sensible data. The faculty of active imagination then projects those matters onto the ‘common sense’ which provides a sensible form to those divine metaphysical realities that they did not originally possess.

4. Metaphysics

In his Philosophy of Illumination, Suhrawardi develops a complex metaphysic of ‘divine’ lights. Light, the lynchpin of his metaphysics, structures his ontology and cosmology at the heart of which lies a spectrum of light and darkness that shapes the whole of reality. In his Intimations (1993a: 2.11-3.16), philosophy is divided into theoretical and practical components, where the practical includes ethics, economics and politics, while the theoretical is concerned with immaterial realities, the highest theoretical component being concerned with absolute being (wujud).

4.1 Essence and Existence

The concept of light manages to ‘disrupt’ classical Peripatetic ontology by somehow rendering irrelevant the Avicennan distinction between essence and existence in contingent beings (Rizvi 2000). Perhaps following Aristotle, Avicenna favored the primacy of essence over existence, the latter considered an abstract concept. Suhrawardi criticized and rejected the Peripatetic logical distinction between the two concepts, insisting that the concept of existence is added to quiddity in re, such that the general extension of the concept of existence remains a mental predicate, not a real one. For Suhrawardi, concepts such as essence and existence considered a priori and real were “merely mental considerations (i‘tibari) with no corresponding reality” (Rizvi 1999: 222).

The primacy of light signals a shift in the understanding of the very nature of the ‘essence’ of things. The degree or intensity of light of essences makes them distinct from one another, although they all share in the same light whose origins remain with the Light of Lights. Everything partakes in and of light, in an almost infinite manner. The distinction between essence and existence no longer becomes appropriate to assert contingency and only remains notional, since the difference between necessary and contingent beings now depends on whether a being possesses light in itself or light for other than itself (Rizvi 1999: 223). In his Philosophy of Illumination (83.24-7), Suhrawardi writes: “Light is divided into light of itself and in itself and light of itself but in another. You know that accidental light is light in another. Thus, it is not a light in itself although it is a light of itself”.

Rizvi showed how later philosophers ascribed the ontological primacy of essence (or quiddity) thesis to Suhrawardi and noted that he “clearly states that quiddity/essence in itself is a conceptual and unreal a notion as existence” (Rizvi 1999: 224), Suhrawardi noting that “the quiddity of luminosity [i.e., the same as light] is a mental universal” (PI, 92.4-5). But it is also true that Suhrawardi’s “phenomenological epistemology of eidetic vision” could easily imply a primacy of essence (Rizvi 1999: 224). Suhrawardi’s position, therefore, is greatly nominalist, now that both existence and essence are considered mere mental concepts, reality having been redefined with the new primacy of light. Light and essence cannot, however, be synonymous. Both light and darkness exist: “light is the being of things as their instantiating principle in concreto and not their essences” (Rizvi 1999: 224). By the same token, light is not identical with substance, since both dark substances and accidental lights exist (Walbridge 2000: 24). Rizvi (1999: 224) notes that entities grasped as essences through presential knowledge are “apparent aspects of what one might regard as ‘light monads’”, an idea whose source appears to be greatly Platonic.

For Suhrawardi, being is grasped through the (non-sensible) vision of lights that lie beyond the essences, as even the existence of bodies depends upon incorporeal lights (PI, 78.10-79.18). In his Philosophy of Illumination (79.19-22), Suhrawardi writes that “Nothing that has an essence [dhat] of which it is not unconscious is dusky, for its essence is evident to it. It cannot be a dark state in something else, since even the luminous state is not a self-subsistent light, let alone the dark state. Therefore, it is nonspatial pure incorporeal light”. Access to this ultimate reality of beings is achieved through the direct experience of its ontic light reality, rendering intuitive and non-discursive knowledge (logically) prior to any other type of knowledge. Later, Mulla Sadra (d.1640) noted Suhrawardi’s confusion between the concept of existence and the reality of existence and replaced Suhrawardi’s notion of light with the notion of being, blending Avicenna’s ontology of contingency with Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist hierarchy of lights (Rizvi 1999: 225).

4.2 Ontology of Lights

In the Niche of Lights (1998), Muhammad al-Ghazali (d.1111) discussed mystical epistemology using Qur’anic light terminology, whereas Suhrawardi, in his Philosophy of Illumination, developed a truly original light ontology. While light always remains in itself identical, its proximity or distance from the Light of Lights determines the ontic light reality of all beings. Light operates through the activities of dominion of the higher ‘triumphal’ or ‘victorial’ lights, as well as the desire of the lower lights for the higher ones, operating at all levels and hierarchies of reality (PI, 97.7-98.11). Reality proceeds from the Light of Lights and unfolds via the First Light and all the subsequent lights whose exponential interactions bring about the existence of all entities. As each new light interacts with other existing lights, more light and dark substances are generated. Light produces both immaterial and substantial lights, such as immaterial intellects (angels), human and animal souls. Light produces dusky substances, such as bodies. Light can generate both luminous accidents, such as those in immaterial lights, physical lights or rays, and dark accidents, whether it be in immaterial lights or in bodies (PI, 77.1-78.9).

Suhrawardi’s metaphysics of lights rests on at least two central principles which account for all the basic classes of beings (light and darkness, substance and state, independent and dependent beings). A first principle, Walbridge notes, “is a form of the principle of sufficient reason, ‘the principle of the most noble contingency’ […] which asserts that nothing can exist without a cause of higher ontological level” (PI, 90.1-92.25). A second principle is the Aristotelian “impossibility of an ordered, actual infinity” which, with the first principle, guarantees that “there cannot be an infinite number of levels of being and that there must be one being whose existence is necessary in itself—Avicenna’s ‘Necessary of Existence’ (wajib al-wujud)”, the Light of Lights (Walbridge 2000: 24-5; PI, 87.1-89.8).

With the notion of intensity of light, Suhrawardi then develops his two-fold process of light production. A vertical and a horizontal hierarchy of pure immaterial lights structure his Illuminationist metaphysics. From the Light of Lights proceeds a first vertical hierarchy of lights: from the Light of Lights proceeds a First Light (following the classical principle that from the one only the one proceeds) from which proceeds a Second Light and the all-encompassing barzakh (i.e., a ethereal body), from the second a Third Light and the Second barzakh, or the Sphere of Fixed Stars, and so forth. The first vertical hierarchy of lights mirrors the Avicennan Peripatetic process of emanation of Intelligences. Suhrawardi, however, increases the number of active principles, something that Averroes denounced in Avicenna’s Neoplatonic ontology. Suhrawardi’s ‘triumphal’ or ‘victorial’ lights are now as numerous as there are stars in the fixed heavens. While no longer limited to the ten Peripatetic Intelligences and now indefinite in number, they are not infinite (PI, 99.20-100.19).

The vertical hierarchy of lights interacts with a horizontal hierarchy of lights. This second hierarchy of ‘ruling’ lights incorporates, amongst other things, ancient angelologies (Semitic angelic hierarchies and Zoroastrian mythology) and some type of Platonic Forms. Each of these horizontal lights becomes a ‘Lord of Species’, i.e., a luminous self-subsisting and fixed species, whose function is analogous to the Platonic Forms in so far as it ‘governs’ the species under it (rather than being a mere universal), such as the species of bodies that move the celestial spheres and all matters sublunar, including human souls. Out of the interaction of the vertical and the horizontal lights, the bodies of the lower world are generated. These horizontal or vertical lights are all structurally interrelated through the principle of love that the lower lights have for the higher lights and the principle of domination that the higher lights have over the lower ones (PI, 101.12-103.31). The two dimensional hierarchy of lights introduces a new non linear notion of metaphysical causation.

The multiplication of metaphysical entities serves to increase the ontological distance that exists between the Light of Lights and the sublunar world, while simultaneously providing a greater holistic view of reality, since light lies at its core. Notions of intensity and gradation of light, together with notions of presence and self-manifestation, are thus central to Suhrawardi’s metaphysics. The intensity of light corresponds to the degree of their self-awareness, such that the self-awareness of the Light of Lights encompasses all of reality (in terms of intensity). Later, Mulla Sadra (d.1640) takes up Suhrawardi’s insight about the gradation and intensity of light and develops an ontology based on the gradation of existence (rather than light) of all beings, somehow reversing Suhrawardi’s ontology with his primacy of existence and his understanding of essence as a mental concept.

4.3 Imaginal World

About half a century earlier than Ibn ‘Arabi (d.1240), Suhrawardi introduced his own independent ‘imaginal world’, what Corbin has called the mundus imaginalis, a fourth ‘imaginal’ world, alongside the intelligible, the spiritual and the material. This imaginal world, a substance made of shadows, operates like an ‘isthmus’ or an intermediary realm between the world of pure light and the physical world of darkness, lying somewhere between this physical world and the world of the species and of Platonic Forms (the horizontal lights), perhaps at the lower threshold of the world of souls.

In the imaginal world, entities somehow possess an existence of their own (some, prior to their coming into existence in this world). The imaginal world contains images that are not embedded in matter, a plane of “ghosts, of the forms in mirrors, dreams, and worlds of wonder beyond our own” which light can existentiate (Walbridge 2000: 26). The imaginal world provides the material for the miraculous. It is where the ‘metahistorical’ (Corbin’s term) visions of Imams occur, where eschatological forms and images will perhaps be existentiated for the souls of the deceased, so that they may continue to perfect their souls (PI, 148.29-150.17), as well as where elements not fitting conveniently into the Aristotelian scheme of forms in matter are found. Suhrawardi did not, however, systematically develop the concept. This was left to his followers.

5. Politics and Ethics

Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination carries a political dimension. Ziai (1992) provides an overview of what he calls the ‘Illuminationist political doctrine’ which establishes a connection between political authority, just rule, and the ruler’s access to divine light. This is particularly manifest in the Tablets Dedicated to ‘Imad al-Din (Suhrawardi 1993c: 184.12-188.4) and the Book of Radiance (Suhrawardi 1998: 84-5), where Suhrawardi appeals to ancient Persian notions of royal glory (kharrah) and of luminous divine light (farrah), two signs of the divine authority of ancient kings of Iranian mythology, the divine lights that instructed Kay Khusraw and Zarathustra (PI, 156.3-157.3).

Suhrawardi may, in fact, appeal to a somewhat ‘mythological’ genealogy of the transmission of ancient Illuminationist philosophies from the Greek/West and the Iranian/East which he claims to revive. Ziai speculates that Suhrawardi tried to put into practice the political dimension of his Illuminationist philosophy (Ziai 1992: 337; cf. Walbridge 2000: 201-10), based mainly on passages from Suhrawardi’s works and the possible circumstances of his demise and execution. Historical data supporting the thesis, Suhrawardi’s relationship with his many patrons and the purpose of passages relating to these Illuminationist political doctrines need further examination.

The ethics underlying Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist system has yet to be adequately investigated, but the political doctrines can provide indications of the conditions that would guarantee the reign of a just rule, thus providing some elements of an Illuminationist political ethic. Suhrawardi’s particularly Platonic understanding of the mystic qua ruler and his political role, coupled with the role of intuitive or ‘mystical’ access to the ‘divine’ lights by prophets, mystics and sages might, however, not leave Suhrawardi immune to the same criticism Popper leveled against Plato.

One needs to turn to Suhrawardi’s eschatology and his discussions on the fate of the soul in the afterlife to obtain a glimpse of what might constitute a ‘good’ and ethical life in this world. In line with Avicenna’s classification of souls in the hereafter according to their worldly acquisition of practical and theoretical knowledge, the moral qualities developed in this life determine the fate of souls in the afterlife (PI, 148.27-150.17). In search of felicity, souls must attempt to detach themselves from their tenebrous bodies and all that is worldly and material and to access the world of immaterial lights. Souls engrossed in matter in this life partially determine their fate in the afterlife and Suhrawardi, in this respect, does not depart greatly from Peripatetic eschatology.

Prophets, saints and exceptionally gifted mystics are able to achieve conjunction with the world of pure lights. Ascetic practices in this life become a means to attain self-consciousness of the ontic luminosity of the soul. Some of Suhrawardi’s allegorical and mystical treatises, such as The Treatise of the Bird, A Tale of Occidental Exile or A Day with a Group of Sufis (Suhrawardi 1982; cf. Landolt 1987), provide examples of the pedagogical role and instruction of the guide figure, of the Lord of the human species, or of spiritual entities to the novice in his or her quest for the immaterial world of lights in which salvation lies. The posthumous life of individual souls and their ability to perceive the promised other-worldly rewards and punishments become conditions for divine retribution.

6. Legacy of the Illuminationist Tradition

6.1 Post-Suhrawadian Traditions

The tragic end of Suhrawardi marked the birth of the Illuminationist tradition. By the end of the 13^th century, at least two of Suhrawardi’s works were readily available and studied in the major centers of learning of Syria (Damascus and Aleppo), Iraq (Baghdad) and Iran (Maraghah), some of which circulated most probably even before his death. Ziai (2003: 473-87) identifies at least two trends within the Illuminationist tradition of the 13^th century that were to shape later developments: Ibn Kammuna (d.1284), on the one hand, emphasized the purely discursive and the more systematically philosophical aspects of Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist philosophy, while Shahrazuri, on the other hand, focused and expanded on the symbolic and the allegorical aspects of the tradition. Ibn Kammuna, a Jewish philosopher greatly influenced by both Avicenna and Suhrawardi is the first commentator (Langermann 2005: 297-301; Pourjavady and Schmidtke 2006: 23-32). While in Baghdad, Ibn Kammuna (2003) wrote his commentary on the physics and the psychology of Suhrawardi’s Intimations (in 1268). Having resided in Aleppo, Ibn Kammuna could well be the link between Suhrawardi and Shahrazuri (d.ca.1288) who wrote the earliest commentary on the Philosophy of Illumination (Shahrazuri 1993; cf. Marcotte 2002) and whose encyclopedic The Divine Tree (Marcotte 2001b) and his Book of Symbols (Privot 2004) can readily be labeled Illuminationist works, although much work is needed to determine the extent of Shahrazuri’s contribution to the Illuminationist tradition. In 1295, Qutb al-Din Shirazi wrote his own commentary on the Philosophy of Illumination (Shirazi 2001; Suhrawardi 1986), based on Shahrazuri’s work (Walbridge 1992).

Authors that incorporated Illuminationist ideas include Muhammad Ibn Rizi (fl.ca.1280), in his Life of Souls (Marcotte 2004); Athir al-Din al-Abhari (d.1242) in his Uncovering of the Realities; Ibn Abi Jumhur Ahsa’i (d.1501) (Schmidtke 2000); the two theologians Jalal al-Din Dawwani (d.1501) and Ghiyath al-Din Dashtaki (d.1541) who both wrote commentaries on Suhrawardi’s Temples of light (Dawwani 1953; Dashtaki 2003; Suhrawardi 1996); and Mir Damad (d.1631), especially in his Spiritual Attractions (2001) and his Embers (1977). Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) (d.1640) was most interested in Suhrawardi’s critique of Avicennan Peripateticism (existence as a being of reason, the Platonic Forms, and knowledge by presence) and wrote marginal glosses on Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi’s commentary on the Philosophy of Illumination (Suhrawardi 1986). Mulla Sadra positioned himself in opposition to what he understood to be Suhrawardi’s view that quiddity was primary, a view shared by Mir Damad (d.1631), and instead held, like Hadi Sabzawari (d.1873) after him, that existence was primary.

During the same period, Suhrawardi’s works entered the Turkish Ottoman and Persian Indian philosophical traditions. In the Ottoman world, Isma‘il Ankaravi (d.1631), a member of the Mevlevi Sufi order, translated and commented Suhrawardi Temples of Light (Kuspinar 1996). In the 17^th century, the enigmatic Ahmad Ibn al-Harawi (probably from Herat) living in the Indian subcontinent, translated into Persian the Philosophy of Illumination on which he wrote a commentary (Harawi 1979). Azar Kayvan (d.ca.1615), a Zoroastrian high priest from Fars who emigrated to Gujurat in Mughal India during the reign of Emperor Akbar (ruled 1556-1605), started a Zoroastrian Illuminationist school (Walbridge 2001: 91-3). Even thinkers of the twentieth century, like Muhammad Kazim ‘Assar, have been influenced by the Illuminationist tradition (Ziai 2003: 472). On the whole, however, almost nothing has been written on the history of the philosophical legacy of Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination.

6.2 Historiography

Historiography of the Illuminationist tradition has been dominated by two main schools of thought. The first, older and more prevalent school, views Suhrawardi as the founder of a mystical, esoteric and ‘theosophical’ tradition. Its roots are found in Corbin’s mystical or ‘theosophical’ paradigm (Gutas 2002: 16-9). The adoption of an ‘esoteric’ wisdom or ‘theosophy’ (Corbin), or even a philosophia perennis approach (Nasr), to Suhrawardi’s work often overemphasizes the mystical at the expense of the philosophical and somehow blurs the distinction between philosophy, theology and mysticism. Proponents of this approach highlight Suhrawardi’s aim to expound on Avicenna’s incomplete project to develop an ‘Eastern’ (not ‘illuminative’) philosophy of Khurasan (mashriqiyya), in spite of the fact that Avicenna’s ‘Eastern’ philosophy was not a mystical enterprise, but merely a philosophical tradition distinct from the one of the school of Baghdad (Gutas 2000). More generally, the proponents of the mystical approach interpret Illuminationist philosophy as a break or a departure from Avicennan Peripateticism (Mehdi H. Yazdi, Hossein Nasr, Ashtiyani), rather than seeing it as its extension and critique. Scholars have often overlooked the fact that Suhrawardi’s major works are largely devoted to technical philosophical questions, of which his allegorical or minor works are not devoid.

Some, like Fakhry (1982), have gone so far as to question the originality of Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination, deeming it a mere transposition of Avicennan philosophy into a light terminology. Izutsu (1971) was one of the first to explore the analytical aspect of Suhrawardi’s work, followed especially by Ziai (1990), but also by Walbridge (2000, 2001) who have focused on some of the analytical and philosophical elements of Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination. While some, like Henry Corbin and Mohammad Mo’in, have viewed Suhrawardi as the reviver of some ancient form of Persian philosophy, others, like Ziai (2003: 443), are more skeptical and note the absence of textual evidence for such an independent Persian philosophical tradition. Similarly, Gutas (2003) notes the absence of textual evidence to support the claim that Suhrawardi attempted to revive ancient Western Greek, Gnostic and Hermetic traditions. Research should perhaps focus on the reasons why Suhrawardi appealed to the authority of the ‘Ancients’, East and West, rather than on trying to find ‘real’ historical filiations to sources to which Suhrawardi might have had access.

More studies are needed on the works of authors who belonged to, or who were influenced by the Illuminationist tradition (see e.g., Schmidtke 2000; Pourjavadi & Schmidtke 2006). This will provide the much needed accounts of the complex historical and philosophical developments of the Illuminationist tradition. Although recent scholarship highlights Suhrawardi’s critique of Avicennan Peripatetic logic, epistemology and metaphysics (Ziai 1990) and even psychology, more studies are needed that explore specific logical, epistemological, physical, and metaphysical issues found in Suhrawardi’s four major Arabic texts and that compare systematically Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination with Avicenna’s major works, such as the Cure. This will undoubtedly provide new insight into Suhrawardi’s greatly Platonic reworking of Avicennan Peripateticism, what Gutas (2002) has identified as Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist Avicennism.

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• ––– (2000). The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the Greeks, Albany (NY): State University of New York Press.
• ––– (1992). The Science of Mystic Lights: Qutb al-Din Shirazi and the Illuminationist Tradition in Islamic Philosophy, Cambridge: Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
• Ziai, H. (2003). [1996]. “The Illuminationist Tradition”, in History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. S. H. Nasr and O. Leaman, London: Routledge, 465-96.
• ––– (1992). “The Source and Nature of Political Authority in Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination”, in Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Charles Butterworth, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• ––– (1990). Knowledge and Illumination: A Study of Suhrawardi’s Hikmat al-Ishraq, Atlanta: Scholars Press.

Other Internet Resources

• Ishraqi literatures, Suhrawardi Bibliography (maintained by Stephen N. Lambden).
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suhrawardi/

By Thomas Cleary
Edited with Links
by Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Introduction
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. Seen in this light, then, everything affects and is affected by, more or less immediately or remotely, everything else; just as this is true of every system of relationships, so is it true of the totality of existence. In seeking to understand individuals and groups, therefore, 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.The ethic of the Hua-yen teaching is based on this fundamental theme of universal interdependence; while the so-called bodhisattva, the person devoted to enlightenment, 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 enlightenment 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. (pp. 2-3)
The Hua-yen Scripture
The T’ang dynasty (618-907), during which the Hua-yen school of Buddhism emerged and was fully articulated, was a period of remarkable activity in Chinese Buddhism as a whole. At least 39 Indian and Central Asian monks provided Chinese translations of hundreds of Buddhist texts, while over 50 Chinese monks traveled to India in search of Buddhist learning and lore… Historically speaking, it is often said that there are four major schools of Chinese Buddhism— the T’ien-t’ai, Hua-yen, Ch’an, and Ching-t’u schools. The former two are usually noted for their philosophy while the latter two are noted for their meditational practices; both philosophy & practice are, however, included in all four schools with varying degrees of emphasis & complexity. (pp. 9-10)

The Hua-yen teachings were originally projected in the Chinese field largely through the works of five eminent monks who are known as the founders or patriarchs of the Hua-yen school: (pp. 11-15)
Tu Shun (557-640):
Contemplation of the Realm of Reality (Fa-chieh kuan)
Mysteries of the Realm of Reality of the Hua-yen
Cessation and Contemplation in the Five Teachings of the Hua-yen
Ten Mysterious Gates of the Unitary Vehicle of the Hua-yen
(Hua-yen i-ch’eng shih hsuan men)
Chih-yen (600-668):
Record of Searches into the Mysteries of the Hua-yen Scripture
Fifty Essential Questions and Answers on the Hua-yen
Fa-tsang (643-712):
Treatise on the Golden Lion
Record of Investigation into the Mysteries of the Hua-yen Scripture
Forest of Topics in the Hua-yen (Hua-yen ts’e lin)
Treatise on the Divisions of Doctrine in the Unitary Vehicle of the Hua-yen
Treatise on the Five Teachings (Wu chiao chang)
Record of Musings on the Realm of the Teaching of the Hua-yen
Record of Doctrines Forming the Pulse of the Hua-yen Scripture
Treatise on Development of the Will for Enlightenment According to the Hua-yen
Treatise on the Three Treasures Established in the Book on Clarification of Method
A Hundred Gates of the Ocean of Meanings in the Hua-yen Scripture
Cultivation of Contemplation of the Inner Meaning of the Hua-yen:
The Ending of Delusion and Return to the Source
Cheng-kuan (738-839 or 760-820):
Eighteen Questions and Answers on the ‘Entry into the Realm of Reality’
Explanations of Verses on the Seven Locations and Nine Assemblies
Contemplation of the Five Clusters (Wu yun kuan)
Contemplation of the Merging of the Three Sages
Teaching of the Mind Essentials of the Hua-yen
Tsung-mi (780-841):
Comprehensive Introduction to a Collection of Expositions of the Sources of Ch’an
Commentary on Yuan-chiao ching, Scripture on Complete Enlightenment
Study of the Basis of Man (Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist teachings)

Emptiness and Relativity
To delve into the philosophy of Hua-yen Buddhism, it is necessary to deal with the doctrine of emptiness, which is central to Buddhism… A very simple and useful way to glimpse emptiness— usually defined in the Hua-yen scripture as emptiness of intrinsic nature or own being— is by considering things from different points of view. What for one form of life is a waste product is for another form of life an essential nutrient; what is a predator for one species is prey to another. In this sense it can be seen that things do not have fixed, self-defined nature of their own; what they “are” depends upon the relationships in terms of which they are considered. Even if we say that something is the sum total of its possibilities, still we cannot point to a unique, intrinsic, self-defined nature that characterizes the thing in its very essence. (pp. 18-19)

Fa-tsang expounds the essential nondifference of the two senses of the three natures. Though the real nature, going along with conditions, becomes defiled or pure, it never loses its inherent purity— tha is indeed why it can become defiled or pure according to conditions. This purity is likened to a clear mirror reflecting the defiled and pure while never losing the clarity of the mirror— indeed it is precisely because the mirror does not lose its clarity that it can reflect defiled and pure forms. By the reflection of defiled and pure forms, in fact, we can know that the mirror itself is clear. So it is, Fa-tsang explains, with the principle of true thusness: it not only becomes defiled and pure without affecting its inherent purity but by its becoming defiled or pure its inherent purity is revealed. Not only does it reveal its inherent purity without obliterating defilement and purity; it is precisely because of its inherent purity that it can become defiled and pure. Here “inherent purity” means emptiness of inherently fixed nature whereas relative “defilement” and “purity” depend on action and the experiencing mind. All mundane and holy states are manifestations of “thusness”, yet the essential nature of thusness— which is naturelessness— is not affected.

This brings us to the relative nature. Fa-tsang says that although it is through cause and conditions that seeming existence appears, yet this seeming existence cannot have inherent nature or essential reality because whatever is born of conditions has no essence or nature of its own. If it is not essenceless, then it does not depend on conditions; and if it does not depend on conditions, then it is not seeming existence. Since the establishment of seeming existence must proceed from a set of conditions, it has no inherent reality of its own. Therefore, Fa-tsang continues, the Ta-chih-tu lun says: “Observe that all things are born from causes and conditions, and so have no individual reality, and hence are ultimately empty. Ultimate emptiness is called transcendent wisdom.” By conditional origination, Fa-tsang points out, absence of inherent nature is revealed; when the Chung lun says “because there is the truth of emptiness, all things can be established,” this is showing conditional production by menas of absence of inherent nature. Fa-tsang then quotes the Nirvana scripture, saying, “Phenomena exist because of causality and are void because of essencelessness,” concluding that absence of inherent nature and causality are identical. Thus are the real nature and the relative nature harmonized and seen to be different views of the same truth. (pp. 23-24)

The Four Realms of Reality
The dialect of Hua-yen philosophy is consummated in the doctrine of the four realms of reality, comprehending both conventional and absolute reality. The four realms are the realm of phenomena, the realm of noumenon (which means the principle of emptiness), the realm of noninterference between noumenon and phenomena, and the realm of noninterference among phenomena… Tu Shun’s “Contemplation of Reality-Realm” explores ten aspects of the noninterference of noumenon and phenomena:
1) aspect of noumenon pervading phenomena: emptiness is wholly present in all things;
  in terms of impermanence, it means that transience is inherent in all things.
2) aspect of phenomena pervading noumenon: the noumenon in any particular phenomenon is the
  same as the noumenon in all other phenomena. The space in one atom, seen from the standpoint
  of space itself and not the boundaries of phenomena, is one with the whole of space.
3) aspect of the formation of phenomenoa based on noumenon: since phenomena are conditional their existence
  depends on their relativity— they can only exist because of their very lack of inherent identity.
4) aspect of phenomena being able to show noumenon: for phenomena, there would be no medium of
  expression & perception of the principle of relativity— indeed there would be no relativity.
5) aspect of removing phenomena by means of noumenon: By bringing the awareness of noumenon or
  emptiness to the fore, one views the nonabsoluteness or nonfinality of the characteristics
  or appearance of things.
6) aspect of phenomena being able to conceal noumenon: the surface of things, the obvious appearances,
  obscure the noumenon. While we all have Buddha nature, our attachments & illusions prevent us
  from being aware of it.
7) aspect of the true noumenon being identical to phenomena: the noumenon is not outside of things
aspect of phenomena being identical to noumenon: phenomena, originating interdependently, being products
  of causes & conditions, have no individual reality, and in that sense are identical to the noumenon, emptiness.
9) aspect of true noumenon not being phenomena: emptiness qua emptiness is not the characteristics of form.
  The appearance of discrete phenomena is an illusion; although the illusion is in reality empty,
  emptiness is not the illusion.
10) aspect of phenomena not being noumenon: phenomena qua phenomena are not noumenon,
  that characteristics or appearances are not essence. These last two aspects view noumenon
  and phenomena as extremes, on the basis of which they are correlative. (pp. 24-27)

The Ten Mysterious Gates
These ten aspects of the mutual inclusion of all phenomena as delineated by Tu Shun were further
developed by Chih-yen and Fa-tsang into the famous doctrine of the ten mysterious gates:
1) simultaneous complete correspondence: all things come from interdependent origination,
  simulataneously depending on each other for their manifestation.
2) freedom and noninterference of extension and restriction, or breadth and narrowness:
  all interdependent things have both these limited & unlimited aspects, in that
  as conditional individual phenomena they are integral partrs of the whole universe.
3) one and many containing each other without being the same: the power of one phenomenon enters
  into all other phenomena, while the power of all other phenomena enters into one.
  The doings of a society affect the individual in that society while the doings of the individual
  affect the society— this is but two ways of saying that each individual in a society affects,
  directly or indirectly, every other individual.
4) mutual identification of all things: the two aspects (one and many) are shown to merge
  into one suchness; this is likened to water and waves containing each other.
5) existence of both concealment and revelation: when one thing is identified with all things,
  then the all is manifest and the one is concealed. When all things are identified with one,
  then one is manifest and the many is cncealed.
6) establishment of mutual containment even in the minute: even the most minute particle contains
  all things, like a mirror reflecting the myriad forms.
7) realm of Indra’s net: The net of Indra is a net of jewels: not only does each jewel reflect all
  the other jewels but the reflections of all the jewels in each jewel also contain the reflections
  of all the other jewels, ad infinitum. This “infinity of infinities” represents the interidentification
  and interpenetration of all things as illustrated in the preceding gates.
using a phenomenon to illustrate a principle and produce understanding: Since one and all
  are mutually coproduced, one can be used to illustrate all— that is to say, for example,
  that the relativity of one phenomenon reveals the relativity of all. This concept is often
  referred as the Buddhist teaching being revealed on the tip of a hair or in a mote of dust.
9) separate phenomena of the ten time frames variously existing: The ten time frames are the past, present,
  and future of the past, present, and future, and the totality— that is, the past of the past, the present
  of the past, the future of the past, the past of the present, the present of the present, the future of the present,
  the past of the future, the present of the future, the future of the future, and the totality of all these times.
10) the principal and satellites completely illumined and containing all qualities: when one thing is made
  the focus, it becomes the “principal” while everything else is a multitude of “satellites” of the principal.
  (pp. 33-39)

Chih-yen: Ten Mysterious Gates of the Unitary Vehicle of the Hua-yen
Multiplicity within unity and unity within multiplicity are represented in this treatise not only in terms of the interdependence or mutual definition of numbers but also in terms of a holistic view in which every part includes the whole by virtue of being inextricably related. By emphasizing the relationship of teacher, teaching, and student, as well as the interdependence of phenomena and principles, Chih-yen establishes this very principle of relativity as the central and pervasive principle of the comprehensive, unitary teaching of the Hua-yen. Thus the Hua-yen teaching subsumes all the Buddhist teachings, specifically and generally, into a whole which transcends, wtihout obliterating, the multitude of differences in the doctrines and practices of Buddhism. (p. 125)
There are ten aspects of interdependent origination which are all interrelated:
1) Simultaneous complete interrelation— this is explained in reference to the interrelation

2) The realm of the net of Indra— this is explained in terms of metaphor.
3) Latent concealment and revelation both existing— this is explained in terms of conditions.
4) Minute containment and establishment— this is explained in terms of forms and characteristics.
5) Separate phenomena of the ten time divisions variously existing— this is explained in terms of time divisions.
6) The purity and mixture of the repositories containing all virtues— this is explained in terms of practice.
7) One and many containing each other without being the same— this is explained in terms of noumenon.
All things freely identifying with each other— this is explained in terms of function.
9) Creation only by the operation of mind— this is explained in terms of mind.
10) Using phenomena to illustrate the Teaching and produce understanding— this is explained in terms of knowledge.

In each of these ten gates are also ten, all together making a hundred. These ten are:
1) doctrine and meaning

3) understanding and practice
4) cause and result
5) person and dharma
6) divisions of sphere and stage
7) teaching and knowledge, teacher and disciple
prinicpal & satellites, objective & subjective realms
9) retrogression & progression, substance & function
10) adaptation to the faculties, inclinations, and natures of beings. (pp. 131-132)

Fa-tsang: Cultivation of Contemplation of the Inner Meaning of the Hua-yen:
The Ending of Delusion and Return to the Source
The full teaching is inconceivable— when you look into a single atom it appears all at once. The complete school is unfathomable— by observing a fine hair it is all equally revealed. Functions are separated in the essence, however, and are not without different patters; phenomena are manifest depending on noumenon and inherently have a unitary form. It is like this: when sickness occurs, medicine is developed; when delusion is born, knowledge is established. When the sickness is gone, the medicine is forgotten; it is like using an empty fist to stop a child’s crying. When the mind is penetrated, phenomena are penetrated; empty space is adduced to represent universality. One awakened, once enlightened, what obstruction or penetration is there? The clinging of the hundred negations is stopped; the exaggeration and underestimation of the four propostions is ended. Thereby we find that medicine and sickness both disappear, quietude and confusion both melt and dissolve; it is thereby possible to enter the mysterious source, efface “nature” and “characteristics”, and enter the realm of reality.

Here in this work I am collecting the mysterious profundities and summing up the great source, producing a volume of scripture within an atom, turning the wheel of the Teaching on a hair. Those with clarity will grow in virtue on the same day; the blind have no hope in many lives. For those who understand the message, mountains are easy to move; for those who turn away from the source, ounces are hard to take. (p. 150)

Because sentient beings are deluded, they think illusion is to be abandoned and think reality is to be entered; when they are enlightened, illusion itself is reality— there is no other reality besides to enter. The meaning here is the same; entering without entering, it is called entry. Why? Entering and not entering are fundamentally equal; it is the same one cosmos. The “Treatise on Awakening of Faith” says, “If sentient beings can contemplate no thought, this is called entering the gate of true thusness.”

As for the five cessations, first is cessation by awareness of the pure emptiness of things and detachment from objects. This means that things in ultimate truth are empty and quiescent in their fundamental nature; things in conventional truth seem to exist yet are empty. The ultimate and conventional, purely empty, are null and groundless; once relating knowledge is stilled, objects related to are empty. Mind and objects not constraining, the essence pervades, empty and open. At the moment of true realization, cause and effect are both transcended. The Vimalakirti scripture says, “The truth is not in the province of cause, nor in effect.” Based on this doctrine we call it cessation by awareness of the pure emptiness of things and detachment from objects. Second is cessation by contemplation of the voidness of person and cutting off desire. That is, the five clusters have no master— this is called void. Empty quietude without any seeking is called cutting off desire. Therefore it is called cessation by contemplation of the voidness of person and cutting off desire. Third is cessation because of the spontaneity of the profusion of natural evolution… Fourth is cessation by the light of concentration shining forth without thought. This refers to the precious jewel of the blessed universal monarch with a pure jewel net… Fifth is formless cessation in the mystic communion of noumenon and phenomena. (pp. 162-163)

Sixth is the contemplation of the net of Indra, where principal and satellites reflect one another. This means that with self as principal, one looks to others as satellites or companions; or else one thing or principle is taken as principal and all things or principles become satellites or companions; or one body is taken as principal and all bodies become satelllites. Whatever single thing is brought up, immediately principal and satellite are equally contained, multiplying infinitely— this represents the nature of things manifesting reflections multiplied and remultiplied in all phenomena, all infinitely. This is also the infinite doubling and redoubling of compassion and wisdom. It is like when the boy Sudhana gradually traveled south from the Jeta grove until he reached the great tower of Vairocana’s ornaments. For a while he concentrated, then said to Maitreya, “O please, Great Sage, open the door of the tower and let me enter.” Maitreya snapped his fingers and the door opened. When Sudhana had entered, it closed as before. He saw that inside the tower were hundreds and thousands of towers, and in front of each tower was a Maitreya Bodhisattva, and before each Maitreya Bodhisattva was a boy Sudhana, each Sudhana joining his palms before Maitreya. This represents the multiple levels of the cosmos of reality, like the net of Indra, principal and satellites reflecting each other. This is also the contemplation of noninterference among all phenomena. (p. 168)

Appendix: Highlights of the Hua-yen Scripture
The first full translation in 60 scrolls, were made by Buddhabhadra (359-429 A.D.); an even more thorough version, comprising 80 scrolls, was made from another text at the end of the 7th century by Siksananda (652-710 A.D.). For convenience these two versions are often referred to respectively as the 60 and 80-scroll Hua-yen. (pp. 171-205)

Book 1: “Wonderful Adornments of the Leaders of the Worlds (scrolls 1-5)
60: “Pure Eyes of the Worlds”, scrolls 1-2

Book 2: “Appearance of the Buddha” (scroll 6)
60: Included in part 1 of “Vairocana Buddha”, scroll 2

Book 3: “The Concentration of Samantabhadra” (scroll 7)
60: Included in part 2 of “Vairocana Buddha”, scroll 3

Book 4: “Formation of the Worlds” (scroll 7)
60: Included in part 2 of “Vairocana Buddha”, scroll 3

Book 5: “The Flower Treasury World” (scrolls 8-10)
60: Included in part 2 of “Vairocana Buddha”, scrolls 3-4

Book 6: “Vairocana Buddha” (scroll 11)
60: Included in part 3 of “Vairocana Buddha”, scroll 4

Book 7: “Names and Epithets of the Enlightened Ones” (scroll 12)
60: Same title; book 3, scroll 4

Book 8: “The Four Holy Truths” (scroll 12)
60: “The Four Truths”, book 4, scrolls 4-5

Book 9: “Awakening by Light” (scroll 13)
60: “Awakening by the Enlightened One’s Light”, book 5, scroll 5

Book 10: “A Bodhisattva Asks for Clarification” (scroll 13)
60: “Bodhisattvas Clarify Problems”, book 6, scroll 5

Book 11: “Purifying Action” (scroll 14)
60: Same title, book 7, scroll 6
Fo-shuo p’u-sa pen-yeh ching (T. 281), “Scripture on the Original Deeds of the Bodhisattva as Explained by the Buddha”, translated by Chih-ch’ien sometime between 220-265 A.D. This book concentrates on the development of attitude and outlook, detailing a scheme of thought cultivation in which awareness of daily activities is directed to specific prayers for the well-being, development, and liberation of all beings. For example: “Bodhisattvas at home should wish that all beings realize that the nature of ‘home’ is empty, and escape its pressures… While with their spouses and children, they should wish that all beings be equal and impartial toward everyone and forever give up clinging… When they give something, they should wish that all beings be able to relinquish all with hearts free of clinging… When in danger and difficulty, they should wish that all beings be free, unhindered wherever they go… Setting out on the road, they should wish that all beings go where the Buddha goes, into the realm of nonreliance… Walking along the road, they should wish that all beings tread the pure realm of reality, their minds without obstruction. (p. 183)

Book 12: “Chief of the Good” (scrolls 14-15)
60: “Bodhisattva Chief of the Good”, book 8, scrolls 6-7

Book 13: “Ascent to the Peak of Mount Sumeru” (scroll 16)
60: “Buddha Ascends to the Peak of Mount Sumeru”, book 9, scroll 7

Book 14: “Eulogies Atop Mount Sumeru” (scroll 16)
60: “Bodhisattvas Gather like Clouds in the Hall of Wondrous Excellence and Utter Verses”, book 10, scrolls 7-8

Book 15: “The Ten Abodes” (scroll 16)
60: “Ten Abodes of Bodhisattvas”, book 11, scroll 8
P’u-sa shih-chu hsing-tao p’in (T.283), “Book on Bodhisattvas’ Ten Abodes in the Practice of the Way”,
translated by Dharmaraksa sometime between 265-289 A.D.
This book details ten stations of bodhisattvahood: 1) initial determination for enlightenment; 2) preparation of the ground; 3) practice; 4) noble birth (meaning being “reborn” as a product of the teachings); 5) skill in means; 6) right mindfulness; 7) nonregression; youthful nature (innocence and purity); 9) prince of the Teaching; 10) coronation (as sovereign or master of the Teaching). The 1st abode is concerned with broadening the mind and universalizing the outlook; 2nd) developing great compassion toward all beings; 3rd) clarifying knowledge; 4th) developing equanimity; 5th) increasing in freedom and having no attachments; 6th) accepting the nonorigination of things; 7th) gaining emancipation from all things; 8th) advancing in skillfulness in applying the teachings; 9th) progressing in nonobstruction of mind; 10th) increasing in knowledge of all particular ways of liberation.

Book 16: “Religious Practice” (scroll 17)
60: Same title, book 12, scroll 8

Book 17: “Virtues of the Initial Aspiration for Enlightenment” (scroll 17)
60: “Virtues of Bodhisattvas Who Have Just Begun to Aspire to Enlightenment”, book 13, scroll 9

Book 18: “Illuminatng Method” (scroll 18)
60: Same title; book 14, scroll 10

Book 19: “Ascent to the Palace of the Suyama Heaven” (scroll 19)
60: “Freedom of the Buddha Ascending to the Palace of the Suyama Heaven”, book 15, scroll 10

Book 20: “Eulogies in the Palace of the Suyama Heaven” (scroll 19)
60: “Bodhisattvas in the Palace of the Suyama Heaven Utter Verses”, book 16, scroll 10

Book 21: “Ten Practices” (scrolls 19-20)
60: “Clusters of Flowers of Merit— Bodhisattvas’ Ten Practices”, book 17, scrolls 11-12
Ten kinds of practice of bodhisattvas are expounded in this book:
1) Gladdening practice: material generosity, given to benefit beings, with no idea of self, receiver, or gift.
2) Beneficial practice: maintaining pure morality, abiding in equanimity and impartiality.
3) Practice of nonopposition: realizing that pain & pleasure, suffering & happiness, have no absolute existence.
4) Practice of indefatigability: cultivating perseverance to cause all beings to attain nirvana.
5) Practice of freedom from ignorance & confusion: perfecting right mindfulness and enlarging concentration.
6) Practice of skillful revelation: knowing that thoughts, words, and deeds have no absolute existence.
7) Practice of nonattachment: cultivating enlightening practices forever.
Practice of that which is difficult to attain: development of virtuous qualities;
  teaching others without in effect saying a single thing.
9) Practice of goodness: attaining comprehensive mnemonic power, dealing with others with unbreakable compassion.
10) Practice of real truth: penetrating ever deeper into the Buddha’s teachings and arriving at the fountainhead of truth.

Book 22: “Ten Inexhaustible Treasures” (scroll 21)
60: “Bodhisattvas’ Ten Inexhaustible Treasures”, book 18, scroll 12
“Ten inexhaustible treasuries” are spoken in this book:
1) Faith: believing all things are empty and immeasurable.
2) Ethics: universal altruism, nonpossessiveness, not injuring others, having no greed.
3) Shame: being ashamed of past wrongs.
4) Conscience: being ashamed to do wrong.
5) Learning: learning the various enlightening teachings.
6) Generosity: liberality in giving.
7) Wisdom: truly knowing the causes of suffering and athe end of suffering.
Remembrance: remembering life stages, Buddha’s teachings, and states of mind.
9) Preservation: maintaining the Teachings.
10) Elocution: expounding the Teachings.

Book 23: “Ascent to the Palace of the Tusita Heaven” (scroll 22)
60: “The Buddha Ascends to the Hall of All Jewels in the Palace of the Tusita Heaven”, book 19, scroll 13

Book 24: “Eulogies in the Palace of the Tusita Heaven” (scroll 23)
60: “Bodhisattvas Gather Like Clouds in the Palace of the Tusita Heaven and Praise the Buddha”, book 13, scroll 9

Book 25: “Ten Dedications” (scrolls 23-33)
60: “Diamond Banner Bodhisattva’s Ten Dedications”, book 21, scrolls 14-22

Book 26: “The Ten Stages” (scrolls 34-39)
60: Same title, book 22, scrolls 23-27
The ten stages of bodhisattvahood, with some of their highlights, are as follows:
1) Extremely joyful: being able to help and benefit others; freed from fear; practice of generosity.
2) Purity: truthfulness, flexibility, capability, control, peacefulness, pure goodness, nondefilement,
  nonattachment, broadmindedness, magnanimity. Bodhisattvas in this stage are spontaneously beyond killing,
  stealing, lying, duplicitous talk, offensive talk, frivolous talk, greed, hatred, anger, and false views.
3) Refulgence: purity, stability, relinquishment, freedom from craving, nonregression, firmness,
  glowing brightness, courage, broadmindedness, magnanimity.
4) Flamelike wisdom: ten contemplations: the realms of sentient beings, the realms of facts, the world,
  space, realm of consciousness, desire, form, formlessness, broadminded faith, great-minded faith.
5) Difficult to conquer: ten kinds of equanimous pure mind— mind is composed, impartial, and pure;
  getting ridof views, doubts, and regrets; knowledge of right & wrong paths; cultivating insight;
  meditation on enlightenment; teaching all living beings.
6) Presence: contemplate ten kinds of equality: observe that all things are equal in terms of singleness,
  insubstantiality, birthlessness, deathlessness, fundamental purity, being nonconceptual, being free from
  grasping and rejecting, being quiescent, being like illusions; things are equal in terms of the nonduality
  of their existence and nonexistence.
7) Traveling far: cultivate ten kinds of flexible wisdom— though they practice meditation on emptiness,
  they are kind and compassionate to all living beings; though they are detached from the world, yet they adorn
  the world; though they have extinguished the flame of passions, yet they can arouse their extinct passions for
  the sake of sentient beings; though they know that past, present, and future are but one mental instant, yet
  they cultivate various practices, timing, and periods according to the understanding & discernment of beings.
Imperturbability; reach effortlessness and all striving ceases
9) Perfect intellect: use all kinds of knowledge to serve as teachers
10) Clouds of truth: fulfill the ten powers of Buddhas— knowing what is so and what is not so;
  knowing past, present, and future consequences of action; knowing all states of meditation, concentration,
  and liberation; knowing various realms; understanding; potentials; where all paths lead; seeing what is
  remote and recondit; knowing the past; knowing one has forever cut off habit energy.

Book 27: “Ten Concentrations” (scrolls 40-43)
60: Absent
1) Universal light. 2) Subtle light. 3) Psychic powers traveling to all lands. 4) Practice with a pure profound mind. 5) Knowing the treasury of adornments of the past. 6) Treasure of light of knowledge. 7) Knowing the adornments of Buddhas in all worlds. Different bodies of all living beings. 9) Cosmic freedom. 10) Unobstructed wheel: bodhisattvas attain unobstructed powers of action, speech, and mentation.

Book 28: “The Ten Superknowledges” (scroll 44)
60: Same title (though written differently); book 23, scroll 28
The ten superknowledges discussed in this book are knowledge of others’ minds; clairvoyance; knowledge of past histories of oneself and others; knowledge of the future; clairaudience; nonphysical psychic travel to all Buddha-lands; understanding the languages of all sentient beings; ability to appear in countless forms; knowledge of the true nature of all things; knowledge of absorption in the extinction of all things.

Book 29: “The Ten Acceptances” (scroll 44)
60: Same title; book 24, scroll 28

Book 30: “The Incalculable” (scroll 45)
60: “Mind-King Bodhisattva Asks About the Incalculable”; book 25, scroll 29
This book develops definitions of the fantastic numbers used in the scripture, starting from 100,000, multiplying by 100 to get ten million, then squaring 123 times in succession to reach “an ineffable ineffable squared”. The chapter goes on to say that the cosmos contains infinite infinities and that the qualities and practices of enlightenment are infinite also.

Book 31: “Life Span” (scroll 45)
60: Same title; book 26, scroll 29

Book 32: “Dwelling Places of Bodhisattvas” (scroll 45)
60: Same title; book 27, scroll 29

Book 33: “Inconceivable Qualities of Buddhas” (scroll 46-47)
60: Same title; book 28, scrolls 30-31

Book 34: “Ocean of Marks of the Ten Bodies of the Buddha” (scroll 48)
60: “Ocean of Marks of the Buddha”; book 29, scroll 32

Book 35: “Qualities of the Subsidiary Refinements and Auras of the Buddha” (scroll 48)
60: “Qualities of the Lesser Marks and Auras of the Buddha”; book 30, scroll 32

Book 36: “The Practices of Samantabhadra” (scroll 49)
60: Same title; book 31, scroll 33

Book 37: “Manifestation of the Buddha” (scrolls 50-52)
60: “Jewel King Buddha’s Natural Origination”; book 32, scrolls 33-36

Book 38: “Detachment from the World” (scrolls 53-59)
60: Same title; book 33, scrolls 36-43

Book 39: “Entering the Realm of Reality” (scrolls 60-80)
60: Same title; book 34, scrolls 44-60
The contents of book 39 are summarized in the Introduction

 

Daisai-gedatsu-fuku

How vast is the clothing of liberation

Muso-fukuden-e

Formless,field of happiness, robe!

Hibu-nyorai-kyo

I wear the Tathagata’s teachings.

KooDo-shoshujoo

I save all sentient beings.

 

Shogaku Shunryu Suzuki-roshi (1904-1971), founding abbot of Tassajara Zen Center.

“Sit quietly and pay attention to your breathing. Focus your attention on the sound and movement of your breath, without controlling your breath. Thoughts of other things will come along; acknowledge them, but do not invite them in to tea.”

I called on the abbot in the company of five or six monks from the Hsi-ming Temple. As soon as he saw me he smiled with pleasure, and he joyfully said, ‘I knew that you would come! I have been waiting for such a long time. What pleasure it gives me to look on you today at last! My life is drawing to an end, and until you came there was no one to whom I could transmit the teachings. Go without delay to the ordination altar with incense and a flower.’ I returned to the temple where I had been staying and got the things which were necessary for the ceremony. It was early in the sixth moon, then, that I entered the ordination chamber. I stood in front of the Womb Mandala [Garbha Mandala] and cast my flower in the prescribed manner.¹ By chance it fell on the body of the Buddha Vairochana in the centre. The master exclaimed in delight, ‘How amazing! How perfectly amazing!’ He repeated this three or four times in joy and wonder. I was then given the fivefold baptism and received the instruction in the Three Mysteries that bring divine intercession. Next I was taught the Sanskrit formulas for the Womb Mandala, and learned the yoga contemplation on all the Honoured Ones.

Early in the seventh moon I entered the ordination chamber of the Diamond [Vajra] Mandala for a second baptism. When I cast my flower it fell on Vairochana again, and the abbot marvelled as he had before. I also received ordination as an acharya early in the following month. On the day of my ordination I provided a feast for five hundred of the monks. The dignitaries of the Green Dragon Temple all attended the feast, and everyone enjoyed himself.

I later studied the Diamond Crown Yoga and the five divisions of the True Words teachings, and spent some time learning Sanskrit and the Sanskrit hymns. The abbot informed me that the Esoteric scriptures are so abstruse that their meaning cannot be conveyed except through art. For this reason he ordered the court artist Li Chen and about a dozen other painters to execute ten scrolls of the Womb and Diamond Mandalas, and assembled more than twenty scribes to make copies of the Diamond and other important esoteric scriptures. He also ordered the bronzesmith Chao Wu to cast fifteen ritual implements. These orders for the painting of religious images and the copying of the sutras were issued at various times.

One day the abbot told me, ‘Long ago, when I was still young, I met the great master Amoghavajra. From the first moment he saw me he treated me like a son, and on his visit to the court and his return to the temple I was inseparable from him as his shadow. He confided to me. ‘You will be the receptacle of the esoteric teachings. Do your best! Do your best!’ I was then initiated into the teachings of both the Womb and Diamond, and into the secret mudras as well. The rest of his disciples, monks and laity alike, studied just one of the Mandalas or one Honoured One or one ritual, but not all of them as I did. How deeply I am indebted to him I shall never be able to express.

‘Now my existence on earth approaches its term, and I cannot long remain. I urge you, therefore, to take the two Mandalas and the hundred volumes of the Esoteric teachings, together with the ritual implements and these gifts which were left to me by my master. Return to your country and propagate the teachings there.

‘When you first arrived I feared I did not have time enough left to teach you everything, but now my teaching is completed, and the work of copying the sutras and making the images is also finished. Hasten back to your country, offer these things to the court, and spread the teachings throughout your country to increase the happiness of the people. Then the land will know peace and everyone will be content. In that way you will return thanks to Buddha and to your teacher. That is also the way to show your devotion to your country and to your family. My disciple I-ming will carry on the teachings here. Your task is to transmit them to the Eastern Land. Do your best! Do your best !’ These were his final instructions to me, kindly and patient as always. On the night of the last full moon of the year he purified himself with a ritual bath and, lying on his right side and making the mudra of Vairochana, he breathed his last.

That night, while I sat in meditation in the Hall, the abbot appeared to me in his usual form and said, ‘You and I have long been pledged to propagate the esoteric teachings. If I am reborn in Japan, this time I will be your disciple.’

I have not gone into the details of all he said, but the general import of the Master’s instructions I have given. [Dated 5th December 806].

 The following is from Robb Smith’s blog at   http://www.robbsmith.name/robb_smith/

It offers an integral approach to understanding this sad and senseless murder.

In Memory of Benazir Bhutto: Presence, Freedom and Fullness

The following is a variation of a healing and balancing practice that Pir Vilayat Khan has often used in retreats– good in early morning or at night.

This practice focuses awareness on the “mantle of light” that stands behind the physical body. This body of light is a very subtle reality, given emphasis in spiritual traditions throughout the world. It is an organizing structure that corresponds to the various chakras, the energy centers described in yoga and eastern medicine. These centers receive impressions in day-to-day experience. Many of the impressions become lodged in the centers, and consequently deaden a certain area or energy meridian. This practice brings the release of impressions and a revitalization of the chakras.

Imagine you are facing an extremely bright light, like a large searchlight. Feel the light permeating your cells. The cells, in response to the light, begin to open and come alive. Feel your body to be transparent, like a quartz crystal, as you allow the light to penetrate throughout your being. Try to maintain this concentration for at least five minutes.
Now begin to become aware of a subtle aura around your body, a rainbow of colors. In the steps which follow, each of the chakras and its corresponding colors will be a focus for concentration. Try to spend at least two minutes on each chakra and color, and place your fingers on the chakra to help in maintaining the concentration. As you concentrate upon the chakra, imagine that the colored light is radiating, purifying and clearing impressions and memories that block the chakras.

While touching the general area of the chakra, breathe in with the thought of bringing the chakra alive, of instilling it with life energy, and breath out with the thought of radiating energy and light from the chakra.1. First chakra - This is located at the base of the spine, the point of contact with the earth. The color is reddish brown, a very subdued light. The light here sometimes seems blocked by the sheer denseness of matter. Feel your being solid and rock-like.

2. Second chakra – This is the seat of the ego and of sexual energy, located in the small of the back, between the navel and the pubic bone, about three inches above the bottom chakra. The color is salmon. There is a sensitive point at the center of this chakra. Feel the strength and suppleness of the chakra, and accentuate it by concentrating on the color. Feel the connection with your primal, instinctual wish for survival.

3. Third chakra – The next chakra is located at the solar plexus. This is the center most associated with the emotions. The color is ochre, or orange-yellow. There is often much stress and constriction surrounding this chakra. After concentrating upon the color, hold your hand out about five inches away from the solar plexus, palm facing your chest. Rotate your palm slowly in a clockwise direction, and have the sense of unwinding and releasing the constriction. Your hand thus sweeps around the solar plexus, and you will feel a definite effect of release from this movement.

4. Fourth chakra – the next chakra, the heart center, is located about three inches directly above the solar plexus, in the center of the chest. A rich, golden light is central to this chakra. Concentration upon this color gives a sense of strength. It is especially useful when one is feeling depleted or in need of psychic protection. One could imagine a shield of golden light surrounding the chest. You will feel a sensitive point in the center of the rib cage that is the exterior center of this chakra. This center is the place where spirit and matter meet, the place of the alchemical marriage.

5. Fifth chakra – The next chakra is located at the throat. Its center is at the point where the head and base of the neck meet. The color of this chakra is a deep emerald green, signifying the dispensation of a life-giving energy. This chakra, associated with sound and expression, is the accommodation through which the spiritual realms speak to us, through which guidance and creativity come.

6. Subsidiary chakra - the eyes- The color associated with the physical eyes is sky blue. Some Tibetan Buddhists utilize this color as a singular object for concentration, in order to attain a very peaceful condition. As you inhale, imagine that you are looking at the deep blue sky, and that you could drink in the blue light through your eyes. Reverse the process on the exhalation, and exhale the light, along with any tension that the eyes hold. Repeat the breath and the concentration a few times.

7. Sixth chakra – The next chakra, sometimes termed the “third eye”, is located in the center of the forehead. A subtle, violet light is associated with this chakra. It is the seat of intuition and insight. From this center, certain glands release the body’s natural relaxing agents during meditation.

8. Seventh chakra - The last chakra, the” crown center”, extends as a series of concentric circles around the head. A diaphanous white color is associated with this center. Imagine being in a moonlit landscape of ice and snow, high in the mountains, at night. Allow the spaciousness and the rarefied air to permeate your being. Feel the part of your being that is detached, peaceful and free. The crown center has no boundaries and from it one’s consciousness may reach out into the cosmos.

After concentrating on each chakra from bottom chakra to the top, you might again imagine another rainbow of colors, more subtle, which begins at the crown center, and which extends further and further out from the body. The ordering of the light remains the same but the colors continue to become finer and finer. You can continue the concentration to still another rainbow, ad infinitum, moving further into an abstract plane of consciousness.