Summary by Jack Woltz. Edited by Mark Unno, 3/11/02

Myoe Koben and the Uses of Reason in Huayan Buddhism

Myoe Koben was a Japanese Buddhist monk during the 12th and 13th centuries, of the Kegon school, a Japanese outgrowth of the Chinese Huayan School of Mahayana Buddhism. He practiced nearly all the different forms of meditation and ritual cultivation he studied.

He was a prolific writer of more than fifty works in a variety of genres: philosophical treatises, meditation manuals, oracular chronicles, travel itineraries, codes of conduct, letters, poetry, and polemics. He used techniques such as paradox, humor, mantras, and meditation to lead his readers to break down artificial distinctions, to go beyond the discursive mind, and to enter the flow of the constantly changing landscape of reality.

There is a theme of anti-rationality expressed in his works, that one must go beyond the discursive mind in order to grasp reality, to attain a truth beyond understanding.

Emptiness and interdependent origination. The rational of distinctions is limited. Anti-rationality of interdependent origination reveals the connections between all things and the anti-rationality of emptiness removes conceptual filters that could vision.

The four-fold Dharma-realm. The relationship between conceptual truth and realized truth is expressed in terms of principle and phenomena: 1. awareness of phenomena as discrete entities, 2. awareness of principle (emptiness) beyond phenomena, 3. awareness of both principle and phenomena, and 4. awareness of phenomena with no need to rationalize any abstract principle because it has been fully internalized (anti-rational, in the sense that it negates conventional reason).

The equality of all things. Every phenomenon embodies the entire web of interdependence. This follows the theme in that it conflicts with the limited hierarchies of the human intellect.

Harnessing passion. Using passion to transcend attachment to distinctions and desire based on attachment is anti-rational in that it uses what might be assumed to hinder.