The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1033 page)

(Jap.,
Kegon
, lit., ‘Flower Adornment’ school). A major school of Chinese Buddhism, which derived its name from the title of the Chinese tr. of its main text,
Buddh
vatamsaka-s
tra
(see
AVATATA
SAKA
). Its main organizer was
Fa-tsang
(3rd Patriarch) (643–712), although its roots are earlier (e.g.
Tu-shun
). Important teachers were Cheng-kuan (737–820), regarded as the incarnation of
Mañju
r
, and Tsung-mi (780–841). Hua-yen was taken to Japan in 740 by Shen-hsiang, where it is known as
Kegon
.
Hua-yen regarded itself as the culmination of the
Buddha
kyamuni's teaching after his enlightenment. This teaching maintains the interdependence and equality of all appearance, the ‘teaching of totality’. Appearances may be in different states, but they are necessarily interdependent in constituting the universe of phenomena, and in equally manifesting the Buddha-illumination of enlightenment. Thus when Fa-tsang was summoned by the formidable empress Wu to expound the s
tra, he took a golden lion in the room as illustration: the lion is the phenomenal world,
shih
, but it is constituted by gold,
li
, the underlying principle which has no form of its own. By analysis into
shih
and
li
, every manifestation is identical to every other, and is an expression of the buddha-nature (
buddhat
). This key perception of the interpenetration of all existences is expressed in Fa-Tsang's image of Indra's net, which spreads across the universe, with a perfect jewel in each of its links: each jewel reflects every other jewel in the whole net.

 
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(1911–86).
American science-fiction writer and founder of
Scientology
. He became widely known with the publication in 1950 of his book
Dianetics
:
The Modern Science of Mental Health
, which is the basic textbook of Scientology. The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954. It has been involved in disputes about whether it is a religion or a psychotherapy, and over its methods of recruitment: in Australia, the High Court ruled in 1983 that it is a religion; in the UK, restrictions were placed (between 1968 and 1980) on those wishing to enter the country to work for, or to study, Scientology. Meanwhile, Hubbard withdrew increasingly from administration in order to write.

 
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