#kegon

The Buddhist Painting of Songgwansa Temple, Suncheon, South Korea (Illustration of Avatamsaka Sutra)

“Then Universally Good also said to the assembly, ‘In the land masses of this ocean of worlds are seas of fragrant waters, as numerous as atoms in unspeakably many buddha-fields. All beautiful jewels adorn the floors of those seas; gems of exquisite fragrances adorn their shores. They are meshed with luminous diamonds. Their fragrant waters shine with the colors of all jewels. Flowers of all kinds of gems swirl on their surfaces. Sandalwood powder settles on the bottom of the seas. They emanate the sounds of Buddhas’ speech. They radiate jewellike light. Boundless enlightening beings, holding various canopies, manifest mystic powers causing the adornments of all worlds to appear therein. Stairways of ten kinds of precious substances are set out in rows, with balustrades of ten kinds of jewels surrounding them. White lotuses ornamented with jewels, as many as atoms in four continents, are spread over the waters, in full bloom. There are unspeakable hundreds of thousands of billions of trillions of banners of ten precious elements, banners of belled gauze of raiments of all jewels, as many as sand grains in the Ganges river, jewel flower palaces of boundless forms, as many as sand grains in the Ganges river, a hundred thousand billion trillion lotus castles of ten precious substances, forests of jewel trees as many as atoms in four continents, networks of flaming jewels, as many sandalwood perfumes as grains of sand in the Ganges, and jewels of blazing radiance emitting the sounds of Buddhas’ speech…”

--From book five “The Flower Bank World” in the The Flower Ornament Scripture (Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra), translated from Chinese by Thomas Cleary. The various sutras were originally composed in Sanskrit and compiled and translated into Chinese in the 5th century CE. Thomas Cleary’s English translation is based on the Chinese translation done by the Khotanese monk Shikshananda (652-710 CE), who translated it at the request of the Tang Empress. 

I stumbled upon this sutra in the back of a book that included a ‘glossary of buddhist terms’ while at a Zen meditation retreat. Flower cosmology? That sounds like my shit. Since I didn’t have my phone I wrote the name down on a piece of paper and slipped it into my backpack. It really is as incredible as I imagined it to be.

“Alan Fox has described the sutra's worldview as ‘fractal’, ‘holographic’, and ‘psychedelic’”—yes.

A hanging scroll of the Kegon Kaie Shoshōjū Mandara (華厳海会諸聖衆曼荼羅), Mandala of the Saints & Divinities of the Flower Ornament Ocean Assembly, currently stored in the Founder’s Hall (開山堂 Kaisandō) on the grounds of Kōzanji Temple (高山寺) up in northwest Kyoto

Prominent at the center top is the cosmic buddha Vairocana (毘盧遮那仏) attended by Kannon Bodhisattva (観音菩薩) & Seishi Bodhisattva (勢至菩薩) and guarded by Bishamonten (毘沙門天) & Jikokuten (持国天), with the 61 smaller figures representing various holy personages who appear in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (華厳経 Kegonkyō)

LA CATARATA DE KEGON BAJO LA TORMENTA

Foscas cumbres escalan el cielo, claman los espíritus guardianes. Del vértice suben torvas verdes, se derraman en señera cascada. De lejos, albo cendal sobre la selva, de cerca ¿la galaxia cruzando el azul? Tal gota pedrisco, tal otra bruma... una bate, la otra flota con el viento. Algunas se sumen en agua invisible. Veo en lo alto un vago orvallo blanco, perlas de dragón cayendo a miles; querella nocturna de un genio bajo el agua. Al llegar, la soflama de un horno: nubes, riscos mondos, encabalgadas cimas. De la cúspide remonta un trueno, recio viento rocía entre mil pinos. En los antros, violáceos relámpagos. De una sola voz el trueno me asorda; ya no distingo fragor de agua o viento. En la selva rompen tumbos con estrépito ¿será la tormenta que asistió al General? ¿Tigres, onzas y elefantes en estampida? ¿O la galerna que conmovió el Tajo Rojo? Los héroes que cargaron contra la armada parecían batahola, mas tenían un orden, sus fuerzas engranadas en máquina perfecta. El dios del viento espolea su corcel, el dios del río retumba su tambor. Sol y sombra se suceden en un guiño; viento y nube más furtivos, inasibles. Sé las mañas de montañeses genios: retan al poeta, como ellos altivo. Aguardo tras las rachas el poniente, un sutil regato trascuela visos de iris. Hojosos riscos, bejucales lucios de rocío; niebla morosa, cambiantes rojos y azules. Esta noche en mi torre beberé solo, con el pecho turbado y temor en el alma. Nadie en mil años alcanzó a Li Bai; Mi canto acabado, con el drago bailaré en las sombras.

(Excerpt from Kegon Sutra shown above)

Reading an early passage of the Kegon Sutra, I came across a poem by the Ho-E Bodhisattva which made me want to cry out, “How wonderful!” Here it is:

“Be free from subject and object, Get away from dirtiness and cleanness, Sometimes entangled and sometimes not, I forget all relative knowledge: My real wish is to enjoy all things with people.”

This poem expresses so clearly what I am thinking about these days that I use it to explain my feelings to everyone I meet.

Subject or object, myself or someone else, individualism or socialism, egotism or altruism-forget about such relative knowledge be free from it! Right or wrong, good or bad, beauty or ugliness-don’t cling to that either. Forget about ignorance or enlightenment! Simply enjoy your life with people-this is the spirit of Gautama Buddha, isn’t it? I’m glad that Shinran Shonin said “When we enter into the inconceivable Other Power, realize that the Reason without Reason does not exist,” and again, “I cannot judge what right or wrong is, and I don’t know at all what is good and bad.” I hate to hear about the fights of isms or clashes between two different faiths. I don’t care about these things.

today on Naruto characters wearing unnecessary crop tops: 

Kegon from taki