With the core tenet of Buddhism- the Law of Dependent Originationas the basis, the Hua-yen sect worked out an intricate philosophy to elucidate the vision of the world arising from the Buddha’s dhyâna experience described in the Avatamsaka Sûtra, which is essentially pragmatic and nonverbal. Hua-yen philosophers expound the relationship between the nou-menon and the phenomenon as interdependent, paradoxically identical, and interchangeably reducible. These patterns of relationship are also seen in the phenomenal world: One phenomenon and the other phenomenon or one phenomenon and the rest of the phenomena not only reciprocally interact as both cause and effect but are identical and interpenetrative. The world is ultimately presented as an integrated whole. During his stay in Japan receiving Zen training, Gary Snyder became acquainted with the Hua-yen world view. Hispragmatic Zen experience together with his grasp of the Hua-yen world view facilitates the forming of his ecological consciousness, which is the ideological foundation of his oeuvre. Snyder is in this sense an apt example for a philosophical interpretation of non-philosophical dhyâna visions of the world.
