Introduction to Hua-Yen Buddhism - 3

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.

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.

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