D. T. Susuki wrote that he considered the Flower Garland Sutra — the Avatamsaka Sutra — to be the most cosmic, grand vision of reality in any scripture ever written or recorded. The massive, three-volume sutra is not a quick read — I was at it for years.

In Thomas Cleary’s forward to his translation of the final volume of his 3 volume edition of the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Gandavyuha or “Entry into the Realm of Reality” volume, he writes:

The book [Gandavyuha] begins with a symbolic description of manifestations of enlightened awareness, explaining that those who are within a fixed system have not the slightest inkling of the scope of consciousness that lies beyond the bounds of their perceptions as conditioned by their training and development. It suggests that all views that are conditioned by cultural and personal history are by definition limiting, and there is a potential awareness that cuts through the boundaries imposed by conventional description based on accumulated mental habit. According to the scripture, it is the perennial task of certain people, by virtue of their own development, to assist others in overcoming arbitrary restrictions of consciousness so as to awaken to the full potential of mind.

That aim or effect alone would be enough of a reason to study the Avatamsaka Sutra. But there is so much more, so many more reasons; the cosmic, sensual, sense-based imagery is breathtaking — if synapses can be overloaded by image and thought, this scripture will do just that — sometimes your mind can only take in a page or two at a time . Description can””t do it justice. Look for quotes — forthcoming.

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