Fazang 法藏 · Tang dynasty, composed c. 690s · 華嚴一乘教義分齊章

The One Vehicle's Distinctions in Teaching and Meaning.

通稱「五教章」 — commonly called the Wujiao Zhang, the "Essay on the Five Teachings"

Every other Huayan text on this site — the Gaṇḍavyūha, the Chapter of Pure Conduct, the Vows of Samantabhadra, Vasubandhu's Treatise on the Ten Grounds — is the Avataṃsaka Sūtra itself, or a commentary on one of its chapters. This treatise is different: it is Fazang (法藏, 643–712), the effective systematizer of the Huayan school, standing outside the sūtra and explaining, in his own voice, what kind of teaching it is, how it ranks against every other teaching the Buddha gave, and what makes it cohere. Here is the "Five Teachings" doctrinal classification that ranks all Buddhism from Hīnayāna up to Huayan's own Perfect Teaching; here are the Ten Mysterious Gates and the Six Characteristics — the formal statement of how one thing can contain everything and everything can be found in one thing, dependent origination of the dharma-realm, worked out with the patience of a philosopher rather than the wonder of a storyteller.

Browse the 34 parts → Translation notes →

How to read this collection

Fazang organizes the whole treatise around his own Ten Gates 十門 — ten successive angles of approach, opened one after another, each building on what came before. This site's 34 parts follow those same ten divisions rather than the source's own four fascicles, since Fazang's own topic boundaries rarely land on a fascicle break. The table below groups all 34 parts by gate; a "Read by Part" list further down links every part in sequence.

Fazang himself is the authoritative voice defining this doctrine — no separate ancient commentator stands between the reader and his prose the way Jingying Huiyuan or Chengguan might elsewhere on this site. Every reading note here is Ru-Yi Meditation Center's own, stated plainly as such, written to make a genuinely difficult, densely cross-referential scholastic text approachable without softening its actual argument.

What each page includes

The full classical Chinese source text beside our English translation — every sentence, verified against the base text for complete coverage.
Reading notes explaining technical terms in plain language: panjiao doctrinal classification, spiritual lineage, the two hindrances, the three natures, and more.
Cross-references to this site's other Huayan-adjacent pages — the Gaṇḍavyūha and the Treatise on the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds — wherever Fazang's abstract doctrine here is exactly what those narrative or expository pages already show concretely.

34 of 34 parts translated — complete

48,384 Chinese characters of root text, across the source's own four fascicles

T1866, vol. 45 — Fazang 法藏, Tang dynasty, Great Recommending-Fortune Monastery

Fazang's Own Ten Gates

The treatise's own outline, stated at the very opening of Part 1: "I will now unlock the meaning of the Tathāgata's Ocean-Seal Samādhi, the One Vehicle's teaching and meaning, briefly making ten gates." Every part below sits under exactly one of these ten.

Gate 1 of 10

建立一乘 Establishing the One Vehicle

Two gates — the Separate Teaching and the Common Teaching — and ten proofs, anchored in the Lotus Sūtra's parable of the three carts, that the One Vehicle both differs from and was never other than the three vehicles.

Parts 1–3

Gate 2 of 10

教義攝益 Teaching, Meaning, and Benefit

What each vehicle actually delivers — not just its doctrine, but the benefit a person walks away with, and whether that benefit reaches only within the world or beyond it.

Part 3

Gate 3 of 10

古今立教 Old and New Classifications

Ten Chinese predecessors surveyed on their own terms — Bodhiruci's one teaching, Guangtong's gradual/sudden/perfect, Tiantai's four teachings, Xuanzang's three Dharma-wheels — before Fazang proposes his own.

Part 4

Gate 4 of 10

分教開宗 The Five Teachings and Ten Doctrines

The treatise's single most cited passage — Hīnayāna, Initial, Final, Sudden, and Perfect Teaching, reaching back through ten rival doctrines of early Buddhist scholasticism.

Part 5

Gate 5 of 10

乘教開合 Combining Vehicle and Teaching

How the vehicles counted in Gate 1 and the teachings named in Gate 4 fold into and out of one another — root within branch, branch within root.

Part 6

Gate 6 of 10

起教前後 When the Teachings Were First Taught

A precise chronology, in seven-day weeks after the Buddha's awakening, for when each teaching was first spoken — and how the "root" teaching and the "branch" teachings can be simultaneous and sequential at once.

Part 6

Gate 7 of 10

決擇前後意 Discerning the Order's Intent

Ten kinds of disciple, each hearing the Buddha teach in a different order — because the sequence lives in the listener's own capacity, not in the Buddha's single, simultaneous utterance.

Part 7

Gate 8 of 10

施設異相 Ten Marks That Set It Apart

Ten concrete marks distinguishing the One Vehicle from the three — its time, place, teacher, audience, and how a single grain of dust becomes a complete Dharma-gate.

Part 8

Gate 9 of 10

所詮差別 Differences in What Is Taught

The treatise's longest gate, run through ten sub-topics in turn: consciousness, spiritual lineage, path-stages, practice-duration, the practicing body, eliminating affliction, the two vehicles turning to Mahāyāna, buddhahood's own nature, a buddha's teaching-domain, and the buddha-bodies — each analyzed across all Five Teachings.

Parts 9–23

Gate 10 of 10

義理分齊 The Principle Itself

The treatise's climax: the Three Natures and the Six Meanings of a Cause, then Huayan's own signature teachings — the Ten Mysterious Gates and the Six Characteristics, worked out through the simile of ten coins and Fazang's famous illustration of a house built from rafters.

Parts 24–34

Read by Part

All 34 parts are translated. Each links to the full bilingual text with reading notes.

Part 1Two Gates, and Ten Ways the One Vehicle Differs from the Three Part 2The Gate of Inclusion, and the Vehicles Counted One, Two, Three Part 3Root and Branch Fused, and the Benefit of the Teaching Part 4Ten Teachers Before Fazang Part 5The Five Teachings and the Ten Doctrines Part 6Combining Vehicle and Teaching, and When Each Was First Taught Part 7Ten Kinds of Disciple, Ten Ways of Hearing the Sequence Part 8Ten Marks That Set the One Vehicle Apart Part 9The Storehouse Consciousness Across Five Teachings Part 10Lineage I — Six Kinds in the Lesser Vehicle, Five in the Greater Part 11Lineage II — All Beings Have Buddha-Nature Part 12Lineage III — The Icchantika Resolved, and the One Vehicle's Own Lineage Part 13Stages and Positions I — The Lesser Vehicle and the Initial Teaching Part 14Stages and Positions II — One Position Holding All Positions Part 15How Long Practice Takes — Three Countless Kalpas, Counted Five Ways Part 16The Body That Practices — Karmic Birth and Transformation-Birth Part 17Eliminating Affliction I — The Initial Teaching's Anatomy of Affliction Part 18Eliminating Affliction II — Why Bodhisattvas Keep What Arhats Cut Part 19Eliminating Affliction III — Eighteen Gates of Using Affliction to Show Position Part 20Eliminating Affliction IV — One Cut, All Cut Part 21Six Answers to Whether the Two Vehicles Turn Back Part 22Is Buddhahood Permanent? And How Many Marks Does a Buddha Bear Part 23Where a Buddha Teaches, and How Many Bodies a Buddha Has Part 24The Three Natures, and How They Are Not Two Part 25Guarding Against One-Sided Views of Suchness Part 26True and Provisional Interpenetrate, and the Six Meanings of a Cause Part 27The Six Meanings of a Cause, Continued Part 28The Simile of Ten Coins I — Mutual Inclusion Part 29The Simile of Ten Coins II — Same Substance, and the Ten Approaches Named Part 30Two Mysterious Gates — Mutual Containment, and a Single Thought of Awakening Part 31Six Mysterious Gates — Indra's Net, the Subtle, the Secret, the Pure, the Ten Times, the One Mind Part 32The Tenth Mysterious Gate, and Why Few Can Believe This Teaching Part 33The Six Characteristics I — The Rafter and the House Part 34The Six Characteristics II — Difference, Formation, Disintegration, and the Closing Verse

Translation Notes

Recurring terms, kept consistent across all 34 parts. See the full translation notes for the complete glossary and structural breakdown, and also this site's note on translation method.

判教 — panjiao, doctrinal classificationThe whole genre this treatise belongs to: ranking every Buddhist teaching by depth. Gate 3 surveys ten predecessors' attempts before Fazang proposes his own in Gate 4.

別教 / 同教 — the Separate Teaching / the Common TeachingFazang's own two-way division of the One Vehicle — deliberately rendered differently from Tiantai's unrelated "distinct teaching" / "shared teaching" already used elsewhere on this site, so the two schemes are never confused.

五教 — the Five TeachingsHīnayāna, Initial, Final, Sudden, and Perfect — Fazang's ranking of all Buddhist doctrine, with the Avataṃsaka alone occupying the Perfect Teaching.

十玄(緣起無礙法)門 — the Ten Mysterious GatesTen formal statements of how any one thing fully contains, and is contained by, everything else — dependent origination of the dharma-realm, worked out gate by gate in Parts 28–32.

六相圓融 — the Six CharacteristicsTotal, Particular, Identical, Different, Formative, and Disintegrating — worked out through Fazang's own illustration of a house built from rafters in Parts 33–34.

法界緣起 — dependent origination of the dharma-realmHuayan's own name for how all things arise together, mutually conditioning and mutually containing one another without obstruction.