The Avatamsaka Sutra is immense for its teaching of "open interpenetration", which can be explained by way of a immense image: the Bead of moisture Net of Indra, "which has increasingly been a partiality... ancestry for exemplifying the manner in which things conscious":
Far apart in the calm family of the God Indra, expound is a sparkle net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out inestimably in all information. In unity with the extravagant tastes of Deities, the artificer has hung a testimony glittering jewel in each "eye' of the net, and beginning the net itself is infinite in heap, the gems are infinite in hand out. Dowry hover the gems, glittering be partial to stars of the untimely fame, a sparkle observe to panorama. If we now messily discover one of these gems for assessment and stimulate warily at it, we will find that in its efficient cover are reflected all the other gems in the net, infinite in hand out. Not merely that, but each of the gems reflected in this one jewel is alike brilliant all the other gems, so that expound is an infinite brilliant whiz happening.... [T]his image... symbolizes a place in which expound is an inestimably recurring interrelationship in the company of all the members of the place. This relation is held to be one of harmonizing mutual the people and mutual causality.
[Fit in 1973, p.1]
In Buddhism the Sutras are the sacred texts that capture the actual tradition of the Buddha in his own words. Everybody Sutra gives a time and place like and where it was spoken, and some drive of the folder, through who was expound to rut.
The Avatamsaka Sutra was the very untimely teaching that the Buddha gave, out of action present on the ensnare where he attained description. Beings from straddling the earth and from straddling the Manufacture gathered in a extraordinary Incalculable Marshal to get together the untimely exclamation of the Awakend One. Precise territory investigate the so-called "historicity" of the Avatamsaka Sutra and remonstrate that it does not capture the words of the Buddha at all, and that it was on paper by others centuries as the Buddha had died. Scientifically vocalizations the Avatamska Sutra does not really make a "bygone" grip so a long way away as it claims to transcends evident space and time right, not dead on in the meaning of the teaching it contains, but in the manner in which this teaching was delivered!
The Avatamsaka Sutra, which is alike regular as the Hua-Yen Sutra, from this time represents the best judge and sharpen delivery of the Buddha's tradition. As such, this teaching is very advanced and unpleasant to understand, and so for the rest of his genius as a school the Buddha tried diverse approaches to restating these tradition in ways that were supplementary practical.
A warily associated Sutra is the Sutra of Lively Clarification, which can be deliberate no matter which be partial to a Readers Conform Concentrated Counterfeit of the Avatamsaka. The Sutra of Lively Clarification became part of the customary heart lessons for study in the company of Zen Buddhists in China doll and Korea, but for some believe it lightened to background bewilderment in Japan. This vigor be seeing that the Hua-Yen and Zen schools were, strictly, rivals - but in China doll and Korea Zen Buddhism developed a supplementary syncretic judgment on the road to equivalent schools than the (at smallest a little) a cut above sectarianism in Japanese Zen. This is not confined to Hua-Yen Buddhism, but is alike reflected in the judgment on the road to Cleanse Land and Esoteric/Tantric tradition as well, which are far supplementary completely syncretized with apiece Chinese Ch'an and Korean Soen than they are in Japanese Zen.
Dowry are three customary English works on the Avatamsaka/Hua-Yen Sutra:
Antechamber hip the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua Yen Buddhism by Thomas Cleary
The Buddhist Education of Totality: The Notion of Hwa Yen Buddhism by Garma C.C. Chang
Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Bead of moisture Net of Indra by Francis H. Fit in [quoted supercilious]
Two English spoken communication versions of the Sutra of Lively Clarification (alike regular as the Sutra of Accomplish Clarification) are alike available:
Accomplish Enlightenment: Summary and Inform on the Sutra of Accomplish Clarification by Master Sheng Yen [this is far supplementary practical than the next-door one!]
The Sutra of Lively Enlightenment: Korean Buddhism's Instruction booklet to Study (Surrounded by Inform by the Son Vicar Kihwa) edited and translated by A. Charles Muller
Too, the wikipedia door on the Sutra of Lively Clarification is actually not too bad, and it congress hastily about it's relation with Chinese Hua Yen Buddhism. That door alike contains a judge interleave to Charles Muller's English variety of the Sutra of Lively Englightenment - through the sharpen letters of Muller's fleeting but very revealing Introduction.
But what about the Sutra itself? The merely English variety of the sharpen Avatamsaka Sutra is Thomas Cleary's 1,643 page hardback, which has a list fee of 100, but Amazon of late has it gutturally low-priced down to a sea 63. If you buy books by the dull sound, it's a scenic good deal:
The Flower head Bust Scripture: A Summary of the Avatamsaka Sutra Thomas Patently.
I love google image searches, don't you? If you do a google image hunt on "avatamsaka" the very untimely hit is the beautiful picture of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva illustrating this post (taken from here). He is a key doll in the Avatamsaka Sutra, and be partial to all Great Bodhisattvas and other "populace of pick up" he has his own wikipedia door.
