Introduction to Hua-Yen Buddhism - 5

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.

8) 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.

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