/lit/ - Literature

>>20474241
>The reader will notice that Hwa Yen is a synthesis of all major Mahayana thoughts, a philosophy of totalistic organism. The three major concepts of Mahayana — namely the Philosophies of Totality, of Emptiness, and of Mind-Only — are all merged into a unity. Far from being a concoction, Hwa Yen Doctrine represents an “organic whole” of all essential elements of Mahayana Buddhism. When one comes to Hwa Yen, he sees Buddhism in a completely new light. Even the tedious Mind-Only doctrine now becomes vivid and alive. The Alaya Consciousness [storehouse consciousness] of Yogacara is no more a dull and torpid “store-house”, the tyrannical Jungian Collective Unconscious is no more an ever-evasive archetypal image projector. In Hwa Yen the “Universal Mind” is likened to a vast Ocean-Mirror in which the infinite dramas of the universe are spontaneously and simultaneously reflected. No more is the Mind-Only doctrine a one-way projection, but it becomes a kaleidoscope of multi-dimensional, mutual projections and interpenetrations. Even the Philosophy of Sumatra (Voidness) now appears to be different from what it was before. The Totalistic Voidness prevented in Hwa Yen literature reveals many hidden facets of Sunyata which are not immediately clear in the Madhyamika theses. Only in Hwa Yen do the far-reaching implications of the Sunyata doctrine laid down in the Prajnaparamita literature become transparently clear. The majority of intellectually inclined Zen monks all come to Hwa Yen because they could oftentimes find therein spiritual guidance in their bewildering Zen Path and discover sensible solutions to those abstruse Zen problems. Many “senseless” Zen koans become meaningful if one can appropriately apply the Hwa Yen Round-Thinking to these cases.