In Huayan [sic] Buddhism, the school whose philosophy is based on The Flower Ornament Scripture, the cosmos, or realm of reality, is a central idea, one which may be used to clarify certain features of the scripture. The cosmos, as the term is used here, includes the entirety of conventional (mundane) and absolute (transcendental) reality. The term from which the notion of cosmos or reality realm derives (Sanskrit: dharmadhatu) can be used to refer to phenomena, individually or collectively, to universes as defined by certain laws or states, to realms of existence and principles defined by the teachings of Buddhism, and also to the realm of nirvana. The Chinese philosophers of the Huayan school distinguished four general reality-realms in which everything, the cosmos, is included: the realm of phenomena, the realm of noumenon, the realm of noninterference or integration of noumenon and phenomena, and the realm of mutual noninterference among phenomena. (pp. 1529-1530)
Excerpted from "Technical Terminology and Symbolism" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra
by Thomas Cleary
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