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The Flower Ornament Lion's Roar Chapter 4
From the winter of 2006 to 2008, we continued to study the doctrinal theses of Plum Village and the Lion’s Roar Chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra, taught by Dharma Teacher Phap Tang. The notable 21-day retreats included:
- 1990 – “Reclaiming our true freedom” (Satipatthana Sutra and Buddhist psychology)
- 1992 – Traditional Mahayana meditation
- 1996 – “The Heart of the Buddha”
- 1998 – “The Path of Transformation” (Anapanasati Sutra)
- 2000 – “The Eye of the Buddha”
- 2002 – “The Hand of the Buddha”
- 2004 – “The Two Feet of the Buddha”
- 2006 – “The Breath of the Buddha” and the retreat “The Brain of the Buddha” for neuroscientists and cognitive scientists.
The Dharma talks on Buddhist Wisdom in The Tale of Kieu have been published as a book and DVD, serving people all over the world. When reading the Lion’s Roar Chapter, the sixth gate of the mysterious entrance – the subtle inter-being establishment gate – manifests the simultaneous presence and interpenetration of eight pairs of opposites:
- gold and lion
- hidden and manifest
- one and many
- pure and mixed
- powerful and powerless
- this and that
- host and friend
- principle and phenomena
Each pair seems to be in contradiction, but “gold embraces the lion, the lion embraces the gold”; the powerful agent has the capacity to produce results, while the powerless agent simply abides without causing obstruction. For example, the eye is a powerful agent that gives rise to seeing, while the government not interfering is a powerless agent. In the Sangha, each person can be both host (powerful) and friend (powerless), embracing one another in alternating roles, making no distinction yet remaining in perfect harmony.