Shi-shi-wuai
事事無礙 (shìshì wú'ài)
The mutual non-obstruction of all phenomena, the pinnacle of Fa-tsang’s Huayan metaphysics: each thing contains all others and enters into each, without anything posing an obstacle. One in all, all in one. The golden lion serves as an image: in each hair, the entire lion, and the infinity of lions in a single hair.
in each and every hair there are an infinite number of lions, and in addition all the single hairs, together with their infinite number of lions, in turn enter into a single hair. In this way the geometric progression is infinite, like the jewels of Celestial Lord Indra's net. This is called the gate of the realm of Indra's net.
The Chinese term shi-shi-wuai (事事無礙) refers to the “non-obstruction between phenomenon and phenomenon.” It represents the highest level of the Huayan school: not only do principle and phenomena harmonize without friction, but the phenomena themselves—all singular things—mutually interpenetrate without any one ever obstructing another.
Fazang does not explain this through concepts but through a statue: a golden lion. “In each of the lion’s eyes, ears, limbs, joints, and in each and every hair, there is the golden lion.” And he pushes the image to vertigo: “in each and every hair there are an infinite number of lions, and in addition all the single hairs, together with their infinite number of lions, in turn enter into a single hair.” The progression is endless, “like the jewels of Indra’s net,” that web where each gem reflects all the others and the reflection of all the others, infinitely.
The emphasis lies on plenitude, not lack. The lion is nothing but gold, without inherent nature, and it is precisely because no thing stands on its own that they can all interpenetrate. Emptiness here is not a void but the condition of a world entirely transparent to itself, “one and all” at every point.
Shi-shi-wuai differs from Buddhist emptiness taken alone: śūnyatā states that nothing has inherent nature; Huayan draws from it the full conclusion of the interpenetration of all in all. Nor does it merge with the Neo-Confucian principle, which hierarchizes li and qi: the li-shi (principle and phenomenon) stage is here surpassed by shi-shi, where phenomena themselves, without mediation by principle, contain one another.