Texte remanié de: Th. 3e cycle--Paris VII, 1980. / Contient le "Journal des rêves", "Yume no ki", de Myōe. Bibliogr. p. 445-488. Index.

Cette étude porte sur les productions iconographiques inspirées de la tradition huayan, l'une des principales écoles chinoises du bouddhisme mahāyāna, née de l’élaboration et de l'étude d’un texte, l’Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Huayan jing en chinois). L’analyse des œuvres se répartit en quatre chapitres. Le premier examine les premières figures du buddha sous sa forme dite de « buddha cosmique », c’est-à-dire dont les vêtements ou le corps, parfois l’auréole et la mandorle sont recouverts de figures plus petites qui se réfèrent au discours cosmologique du sūtra (et en particulier du Daśabhūmika-sūtra, un texte dédié à la méditation, autrefois indépendant et intégré ensuite dans l’Avataṃsaka-sūtra). Ces figures sculptées ou peintes, datant du Ve au IXe siècles, se trouvent principalement dans le Nord-Ouest de la Chine actuelle (Xinjiang et Gansu). Le second chapitre porte sur l’environnement imagier de ces buddhas du VIe au VIIe siècles et sur les premiers portraits sculptés de Vairocana, le buddha principal dans l’Avataṃsaka-sūtra. Ces images consacrées à la méditation furent réalisées dans le Shandong et le Henan actuels et marquées par l'influence d'autres écoles bouddhiques. Le troisième chapitre étudie le développement, sous l’influence du bouddhisme ésotérique, de nouveaux portraits de Vairocana et des bodhisattvas qui en émanent. Les rares exemples conservés se trouvent au Sichuan et datent principalement de la dynastie Song (XIe-XIIIe siècles). Le quatrième chapitre traite de différents types d'images mettant en scène ou combinant plusieurs figures. Tout d'abord, les représentations d’assemblées réalisées en peinture à Dunhuang (Gansu) sous la dynastie Tang (VIIIe-Xe siècles). Puis les images peintes ou imprimées, réalisées sous des Tang aux Song (VIIIe-XIIe siècles), qui illustrent le Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra, la dernière section de l’Avataṃsaka-sūtra qui narre l’histoire d’un jeune Indien parti en pèlerinage pour atteindre l’éveil. Sont enfin abordés les maṇḍala, représentations métaphysiques et symboliques de l’univers sous forme de diagrammes associés à des symboles bouddhiques et à une ou plusieurs divinités. / This study deals with the iconographic production inspired by the huayan tradition, one of the main Chinese schools of mahāyāna Buddhism born from the elaboration and study of a set of texts known as the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Huayan jing in Chinese). The analysis of the artworksis organized into four chapters. The first one examines the first figures of the Buddha known as “cosmic Buddhas”, i.e. those whose clothes or body, or mandorla, are fully covered with smaller figures which refer to the cosmological discourse of the sūtra (particularlythat of the Daśabhūmika-sūtra, a text dedicated to meditation that was once a separate piece and was later included into the Avataṃsaka-sūtra). These sculpted or painted figures, dating from the 5th to the 9thcenturies, are mainly found in the Northwestern part of present-day China (Xinjiang and Gansu). The second chapter studies the iconographic environment of these Buddhas from the 6th to the 7th centuries as well as the first sculpted portraits of Vairocana, the main Buddha in the Avataṃsaka-sūtra. These images, which were used for meditation practices, were produced in what would be the present-day Shandong and Henan under the influence of other Buddhist schools. The third chapter studies the development of new portraits of Vairocana and his emanations as bodhisattvas under the influence of esoteric Buddhism.The only preserved examples are found in Sichuan and date from the Song dynasty (11th-12th centuries). The fourth chapter deals with various types of images which present or combine several figures. First, the painted representations of assemblies produced at Dunhuang (Gansu) during the Tang Dynasty (8th-10th centuries). Second, the painted or printed illustrations of the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra, the last section of the Avataṃsaka-sūtra, which tells the story of a young Indian boy gone on a pilgrimage to attain enlightenment. These images were produced from the Tang to the Song dynasty (8th-13th centuries).

This thesis examines the rationale behind the work of Thomé H. Fang 方東美 (Fang Dongmei, 1899-1977) and Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909-1978), two of the most important Confucian thinkers in twentieth-century China, who appropriated aspects of the medieval Chinese Buddhist school of Huayan to develop a response to the challenges of ‘scientism’, the belief, widespread in their times, that quantitative natural science is the only valuable part of human learning and the only source of truth. As the status of Confucianism in China had declined from the mid-nineteenth century, non-Confucian ideas were appropriated by Chinese thinkers for developing responses to ‘scientism’, adopting the principle of fanben kaixin 返本開新 (going back to the origin and developing new elements). Buddhist ideas from a range of schools played an important role in this. Unlike other thinkers who turned to the schools of Consciousness-Only and Tiantai, Fang and Tang, for reasons of their own, saw the thought of the Huayan school as the apex of Buddhism and so drew on selected aspects to support and develop their own views. Fang regarded Huayan thought as a fine example of the idea of ‘harmony’, since in its vision of the perfect state all phenomena co-exist without contradiction. Interpreting the explanation of this given by Dushun 杜順 (557-640) in his own way, Fang argued that human beings are able to integrate physical, biological and psychic elements of the ‘natural order’ with values such as truth, beauty and goodness which belong to the ‘transcendental order’. He thus proposed that scientism’s view of humanity as matter could be incorporated without contradiction but also without excluding ‘non-scientific’ aesthetic, moral and religious values. By contrast, Tang stressed the characteristics of Huayan’s theory of ‘doctrinal classification’, as developed by Fazang 法藏 (643-712). Interpreting this to mean that different ideas could be applicable in different periods, Tang argued that the worldview of ‘scientism’ may indeed help solve problems in its own sphere, such as the desire for scientific development. Other paradigms, however, are preferable in discussing moral issues. In other words, this Buddhist theory allowed him to claim that both Confucianism and ‘scientism’ have their own value. Neither of them should be negated in principle. I argue that Fang’s and Tang’s selective appropriations of Huayan thought not only paid heed to the hermeneutical importance of studying ancient texts in order to be more responsive to modern issues, a concern hotly debated in the field of Chinese philosophical studies, but also helped confirm the values of Confucianism under the challenge of ‘scientism’. In short, by absorbing ideas from Huayan thought, both Fang and Tang, to different extents and in different ways, provided responses to the challenge of ‘scientism’ which gave a place to science without rejecting the importance of human faculties such as aesthetic appreciation and moral judgment or asserting the dominance of perception and cognition over other human faculties, the ultimate cause, as they saw it, of ‘scientism’.

Since its inception in the 1960s, the scientific research of Buddhist-based meditation practices have grown exponentially with hundreds of new studies every year in the past decade. Some researchers are using Buddhist teachings, such as not-self, as an explanation for the causal mechanism of meditation’s effectiveness, for conditions such as stress, anxiety, and depression. However, there has been little response from Buddhist studies scholars to these proposed mechanisms in the growing discourse surrounding the engagement of ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Science.’ I argue that the mechanistic causal explanations of meditation offered by researchers provide an incomplete understanding of meditative practices. I focus on two articles, by David Vago and his co-authors, that have been cited over nine hundred and three hundred times. I make explicit internal criticisms of their work from their peers in neuroscience, and offer external criticisms of their understanding of the cognitive aspects of meditation by using an extended, enactive, embodied, embedded, and affective (4EA) model of cognition. I also use Chinese Huayan Buddhist mereology and causation to provide a corrective for a more holistic understanding. The constructive aspect of my project combines 4EA cognition with Huayan mereology and causation in order to propose new directions of research on how meditative practices may lead to a changing sense of self that does not privilege neurobiological mechanisms. Instead, I argue a fruitful understanding of change in ethical behavior is a changing sense of self using support from a consummate meditator in the Japanese Zen Buddhist context: Dōgen and his text Shoakumakusa. Contemporary research looking for mechanistic causation focuses on the physical body, specifically the brain, without considering how the mind is involved in meditative practices. The group of researchers I focus on reduce the senses of self to localized parts of the brain. In contrast, according to Mahayana Buddhist terminology, Huayan offers a nondualistic understanding of the self that does not privilege the brain. Rather, Huayan characterizes the self as a mind-body complex and meditation is understood to involve the whole of the person. My critique notes how the methodology used in these studies focuses too much on the localized, explicit, and foreground, but not enough on the whole, implicit, and background processes in meditative practices. Bringing in Huayan also offers a constructive aspect to this engagement of Buddhist studies and neuroscience as there are implications of its mereology for a more complete understanding of not just meditation, but also of neuroplasticity. To be clear, the corrective is only meant for the direction of research that focuses on neural-mechanistic explanations of meditation. Surely, there is value in scientific research on meditative practices. However, that emphasis on neural mechanisms gives a misleading impression of being able to fully explain meditative practices. I argue that a more fruitful direction of engagement between Buddhist traditions and scientific research is the small but growing amount of experiments conducted on how meditative practices lead to ethical change. This direction provides a more complete characterization of how meditative practices changes the senses of self. / Religion

Ce mémoire étudie les représentations de la volonté humaine dans le Soûtra de l’Entrée dans la dimension absolue. L’exégèse du récit révèle dans un premier temps que l’insatisfaction (duḥkha s.) qui imprègne l’existence est en partie causée par la soif (tṛṣṇā s.). Or, notre analyse montre que c’est en faisant usage de leur volonté – source à priori de liberté et de possibilité infinies – que les êtres s’abandonnent systématiquement à leurs sentiments assoiffés et, à terme, perpétuent le cycle infernal des existences. C’est donc sans surprise que la volonté est désignée comme une faculté négative à proscrire de la pratique par les maîtres spirituels du soûtra. Cette indication, simple, mais capitale, doit absolument être suivie par le pratiquant pour qu’il atteigne l’Éveil et participe au bien commun. Le problème, cependant, est que la libération implique nécessairement l’usage de la volonté – dans les voeux, la compassion et la persévérance par exemple. La volonté présente en cela des aspects positifs, mais son potentiel négatif demeure et une question surgit : comment l’éthique du soûtra peut-elle effectivement mener à des effets positifs en étant liée à cette faculté ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous nous rapportons à la conception de la dimension absolue, l’enseignement final du soûtra. Dans cet espace, la volonté se libère de tout conditionnement et une nouvelle manière d’appréhender la posture psychologique des êtres éveillés apparait : la non-volonté. / This dissertation considers representations of human will in chapter 39 of The Flower Ornament Scripture, entitled “Entering the Realm of Reality”. An exegesis of the narrative reveals that the dissatisfaction (duḥkha s.) that permeates existence is partly caused by thirst (tṛṣṇā s.). However, our analysis shows that by exercising their will – a source a priori of infinite freedom and possibility – beings systematically abandon themselves to their thirsty feelings and, in the long run, perpetuate the infernal cycle of existence. Unsurprisingly, will is considered a negative faculty, to be proscribed from practice by the spiritual masters of the sutra; this simple but essential teaching must be followed by the practitioner so that he can reach Enlightenment and participates in the common good. The problem, however, is that liberation necessarily implies the exercise of will, for example in taking vows or practicing compassion and perseverance. Though the exercise of will can have positive aspects, its negative potential remains, leading us to ask: how can the ethics of the sutra actually lead to positive effects if it is connected to will? To answer this question, we refer to the conception of the realm of reality, the final teaching of the sutra. In this realm, the will frees itself from all conditioning and a new way of apprehending the psychological posture of enlightened beings appears: the non-will.