Fazang (法藏)
643–712 · East Asian Buddhism · Known
Fazang was the third patriarch of the Huayan school of Buddhism. He explained reality to the empress with a golden lion: every part of the beast is gold, and the gold is whole in each part. All things hold one another that way, like jewels in a net where each stone reflects every other. One Mind shows up as everything at once, so each part contains the whole that contains it.
Signature
The position Fazang is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity
- Paradox
- Coincidentia Oppositorum
Positions on the 7 axes the sources answer
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (79 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Identity
- leans Changing (88 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (85 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (12 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity (3 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Opposition
- strongly leans Concurrence (92 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (75 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
13 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Fazang refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Pantheism / Panentheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Indistinct from Present
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Intuition / Tradition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational / Intention
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Karmic Causation
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Indistinct from Present
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eternal Present
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Coincidentia Oppositorum
What is the status of paradox? - Death
- Karmic Cycle
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- No-Self
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?