Whitehead and Indra's Net
every moment reflects and includes all the others
Indra's Net
Buddhist scholar and professor Francis Dojun Cook (born Francis Harold Cook) describes Indra’s Net this way in his book Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra:
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net that has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each ‘eye’ of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in all dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number.
There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.”
Thus, in Buddhist philosophy, Indra’s Net represents the interconnectedness of everything in the Universe. And the jewels at each apex in the net, which have influence on all of the other jewels, represent the idea of cause and effect. This describes the Buddhist philosophy that every thought and every action matters as it has an effect on the whole.
The Buddha in the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra's 30th book states a similar idea:
If untold Buddha-lands are reduced to atoms, In one atom are untold lands, and as in one, so in each. The atoms to which these Buddha-lands are reduced in an instant are unspeakable, And so are the atoms of continuous reduction moment to moment, going on for untold eons; These atoms contain lands unspeakably many, and the atoms in these lands are even harder to tell of.
I offer a suggestion, The "atoms" of which the Buddha speaks are the actual entities of which Whitehead speaks: drops of experience, occuring only at an instant which unfold moment by moment, going on for eons. We are those moments.
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net that has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each ‘eye’ of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in all dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number.
There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.”
Thus, in Buddhist philosophy, Indra’s Net represents the interconnectedness of everything in the Universe. And the jewels at each apex in the net, which have influence on all of the other jewels, represent the idea of cause and effect. This describes the Buddhist philosophy that every thought and every action matters as it has an effect on the whole.
The Buddha in the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra's 30th book states a similar idea:
If untold Buddha-lands are reduced to atoms, In one atom are untold lands, and as in one, so in each. The atoms to which these Buddha-lands are reduced in an instant are unspeakable, And so are the atoms of continuous reduction moment to moment, going on for untold eons; These atoms contain lands unspeakably many, and the atoms in these lands are even harder to tell of.
I offer a suggestion, The "atoms" of which the Buddha speaks are the actual entities of which Whitehead speaks: drops of experience, occuring only at an instant which unfold moment by moment, going on for eons. We are those moments.
Whitehead's Organic Metaphysics
Every Actual Entity is 'Present in" Every Other Actual Entity
The principle of universal relativity directly traverses Aristotle’s dictum, ‘A substance† is not present in a subject.’ On the contrary, according to this principle an actual entity is present in other actual entities. In fact if we allow for degrees of relevance, and for negligible relevance, we must say that every actual entity is present in every other actual entity. The philosophy of organism [80] is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of ‘being present in another entity.’
Every Actual Entity pervades the Extensive Continuum
Every actual entity in its relationship to other actual entities is in this sense somewhere in the continuum, and arises out of the data provided by this standpoint. But in another sense it is everywhere throughout the continuum; for its constitution includes the objectifications of the actual world and thereby includes the continuum; also the potential objectifications of itself contribute to the real potentialities whose solidarity the continuum expresses. Thus the continuum is present in each actual entity, and each actual entity pervades the continuum.
Actual Entities are Self-Creative and Self-Forming
... an actual entity by functioning in respect to itself plays diverse rôles in self-formation without losing its self-identity. It is self-creative; and in its process of creation transforms its diversity of rôles into one coherent rôle.
- Whitehead, Process and Reality, 25
Actual Entities are Self-Causing
....an actual entity satisfies Spinoza’s notion of substance: it is causa sui. The creativity is not an external agency with its own ulterior purposes. All actual entities share with God this characteristic of self-causation. For this reason every actual entity also shares with God the characteristic of transcending all other actual entities, including God. The universe is thus a creative advance into novelty. The alternative to this doctrine is a static morphological universe.
- AN Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 202
Actual Entities partially create the Transcendent World
The world is self-creative; and the actual entity as self-creating creature passes into its immortal function of part-creator of the transcendent world. In its self-creation the actual entity is guided by its ideal of itself as individual satisfaction and as transcendent creator. The enjoyment of this ideal is the ‘subjective aim,’ by reason of which the actual entity is a determinate process.
Whitehead, Process and Reality, 95
Commentary
Indra's Net as Interdependent Self-Creativity,
Each Moment Reflects and Includes all the Others
One of the most prominent features of Whitehead's philosophy is its emphasis on relationality. Everything is present in everything else and partially composed of everything else. We are reminded of Indra's Net in Buddhism, with its image of an infinite cosmic web stretching in all directions. At each node of the web hangs a jewel, and each jewel reflects every other jewel in the net. Every reflection contains reflections of all the others, endlessly interwoven and mutually illuminating.
Whitehead offers a different metaphysical vocabulary, but the intuition is similar. An actual entity, in his philosophy, is not an object such as a table or chair that endures through time. It is a moment or drop of experience, that reflects all the other drops. No actual entity, no moment of experience, exists in isolation. Every moment of experience emerges through relationships with a world already there. Each entity inherits influences from the existing world, feels and responds to its environment, and carries those relationships within itself. The many become one and are increased by one.
Indeed, in the spirit of Indra's Net, every entity is "present in" every other entity, Whitehead writes:
"The philosophy of organism is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of ‘being present in another entity."
In this image the very idea of 'internal' versus 'external' or 'inside' and 'outside' is called into question. Everything is everywhere. Nowhere is this clearer than in Whitehead's discussion of the spacetime continuum or, as he puts it, the extensive continuum:
"Every actual entity pervades the extensive continuum."
Yet Whitehead adds an important dimension. The jewels in his universe do not merely mirror one another passively. They are also active centers of becoming. Each actual entity receives the world but also responds to it creatively, integrating what it inherits in its own unique way. It is partly composed of others, but it is not reducible to others. It becomes itself. Thus Whitehead's universe is not simply a web of interdependence; it is a web of interdependent self-creativity. We are constituted by relationships, but not imprisoned by them. We inherit the world, and then, in however small a way, we improvise upon it.
Creativity is the Ultimate Reality
For Whitehead, every actual entity is both caused by others and the cause of itself. It receives the many influences of its world—physical, emotional, conceptual, historical—and, as it receives them, integrates them into its own momentary act of becoming, thereby creating itself in that mment. This integration is not passive. It is an act of self-creativity: the entity decides, however minimally, how the past will live in it and thus what it will be.
This is why every actual entity “transcends” all others, including God. It is not reducible to its causes, not even to the divine lure. God offers possibilities, aims, and ideals, but God does not determine the entity’s final becoming. Each actual entity adds something of its own. In that tiny act of self-causation, it becomes more than the universe that influenced it. It becomes a new fact, a new drop of experience, a new “one” added to the many.
If we have grown up thinking that God creates the world, we are naturally led to ask:
Where does the act of self-creativity come from? Does it come from the past? Does it come from the future? Does it come from God?
Is it produced by something else—perhaps by God? His answer is no. If the act of self-creativity were produced by something outside itself, then it would not truly be self-creativity at all. It would merely be another form of external causation or divine determination.
For Whitehead, self-creativity is rooted in something even more ultimate than God: Creativity itself.
Creativity is the ultimate metaphysical principle—the sheer activity by which, in the immediacy of the act of experiencing, the many of the universe become one and are increased by one. This means that every actual entity, however humble—a quantum event, a cell, a dog, a human being—shares with God a tiny but real power of self-determination. It receives influences from the world and from God, but its becoming is never simply imposed upon it. Something genuinely new happens in every act of becoming. The universe is not a machine moved from outside itself; it is a community of self-creative events participating in the ongoing creative advance into novelty. Such is a Whiteheadian understanding of Indra's Net.
A Way of Being in the World
Of course, what I have set forth above pertains primarily to metaphysics. But what matters most to many people around the world who are drawn to Indra’s Net is not simply a metaphysics but an ethic—a way of inhabiting the world.
Indra’s Net is an invitation to live in such a way that we become aware of, and sensitive to, the inter-becoming of all things, of which we ourselves are an instance. In the Huayan Buddhism context, this translates into capacities for immediate human experience in the present moment: the capacity to prehend, or feel, the feelings of others in ways that are sensitive to their uniqueness and to their world. We recognize that others are, in some ways, part of who and what we are, but also that they transcend us. They are not simply the same as us; they are also other than us. And therein lies part of their beauty. This sensitivity can permeate everyday life.
Complementary to this is a recognition that the more-than-human world—the hills, the rivers, the trees, the stars—is likewise composed of instances of creativity, places where the universe becomes itself in ways that far transcend human life. The worlds of insects, plants, other animals, and stars are not merely objects standing before us. In a Whiteheadian perspective, they are alive with their own forms of subjectivity; hence Whitehead’s idea of pan-experientialism.
Indra’s Net thus becomes an invitation to awaken to the fact that experience is everywhere, not only in human life. Our lives are enriched, not depleted, both by the immanence of all things within us and by the way things transcend us and are more than us. In our own time, this awakening can take social form in a yearning for an ecological civilization in which human beings live with respect and care for the entire community of life and for one another. That, too, is part of the social aspiration of a Whiteheadian understanding of Indra’s Net.
Each Moment Reflects and Includes all the Others
One of the most prominent features of Whitehead's philosophy is its emphasis on relationality. Everything is present in everything else and partially composed of everything else. We are reminded of Indra's Net in Buddhism, with its image of an infinite cosmic web stretching in all directions. At each node of the web hangs a jewel, and each jewel reflects every other jewel in the net. Every reflection contains reflections of all the others, endlessly interwoven and mutually illuminating.
Whitehead offers a different metaphysical vocabulary, but the intuition is similar. An actual entity, in his philosophy, is not an object such as a table or chair that endures through time. It is a moment or drop of experience, that reflects all the other drops. No actual entity, no moment of experience, exists in isolation. Every moment of experience emerges through relationships with a world already there. Each entity inherits influences from the existing world, feels and responds to its environment, and carries those relationships within itself. The many become one and are increased by one.
Indeed, in the spirit of Indra's Net, every entity is "present in" every other entity, Whitehead writes:
"The philosophy of organism is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of ‘being present in another entity."
In this image the very idea of 'internal' versus 'external' or 'inside' and 'outside' is called into question. Everything is everywhere. Nowhere is this clearer than in Whitehead's discussion of the spacetime continuum or, as he puts it, the extensive continuum:
"Every actual entity pervades the extensive continuum."
Yet Whitehead adds an important dimension. The jewels in his universe do not merely mirror one another passively. They are also active centers of becoming. Each actual entity receives the world but also responds to it creatively, integrating what it inherits in its own unique way. It is partly composed of others, but it is not reducible to others. It becomes itself. Thus Whitehead's universe is not simply a web of interdependence; it is a web of interdependent self-creativity. We are constituted by relationships, but not imprisoned by them. We inherit the world, and then, in however small a way, we improvise upon it.
Creativity is the Ultimate Reality
For Whitehead, every actual entity is both caused by others and the cause of itself. It receives the many influences of its world—physical, emotional, conceptual, historical—and, as it receives them, integrates them into its own momentary act of becoming, thereby creating itself in that mment. This integration is not passive. It is an act of self-creativity: the entity decides, however minimally, how the past will live in it and thus what it will be.
This is why every actual entity “transcends” all others, including God. It is not reducible to its causes, not even to the divine lure. God offers possibilities, aims, and ideals, but God does not determine the entity’s final becoming. Each actual entity adds something of its own. In that tiny act of self-causation, it becomes more than the universe that influenced it. It becomes a new fact, a new drop of experience, a new “one” added to the many.
If we have grown up thinking that God creates the world, we are naturally led to ask:
Where does the act of self-creativity come from? Does it come from the past? Does it come from the future? Does it come from God?
Is it produced by something else—perhaps by God? His answer is no. If the act of self-creativity were produced by something outside itself, then it would not truly be self-creativity at all. It would merely be another form of external causation or divine determination.
For Whitehead, self-creativity is rooted in something even more ultimate than God: Creativity itself.
Creativity is the ultimate metaphysical principle—the sheer activity by which, in the immediacy of the act of experiencing, the many of the universe become one and are increased by one. This means that every actual entity, however humble—a quantum event, a cell, a dog, a human being—shares with God a tiny but real power of self-determination. It receives influences from the world and from God, but its becoming is never simply imposed upon it. Something genuinely new happens in every act of becoming. The universe is not a machine moved from outside itself; it is a community of self-creative events participating in the ongoing creative advance into novelty. Such is a Whiteheadian understanding of Indra's Net.
A Way of Being in the World
Of course, what I have set forth above pertains primarily to metaphysics. But what matters most to many people around the world who are drawn to Indra’s Net is not simply a metaphysics but an ethic—a way of inhabiting the world.
Indra’s Net is an invitation to live in such a way that we become aware of, and sensitive to, the inter-becoming of all things, of which we ourselves are an instance. In the Huayan Buddhism context, this translates into capacities for immediate human experience in the present moment: the capacity to prehend, or feel, the feelings of others in ways that are sensitive to their uniqueness and to their world. We recognize that others are, in some ways, part of who and what we are, but also that they transcend us. They are not simply the same as us; they are also other than us. And therein lies part of their beauty. This sensitivity can permeate everyday life.
Complementary to this is a recognition that the more-than-human world—the hills, the rivers, the trees, the stars—is likewise composed of instances of creativity, places where the universe becomes itself in ways that far transcend human life. The worlds of insects, plants, other animals, and stars are not merely objects standing before us. In a Whiteheadian perspective, they are alive with their own forms of subjectivity; hence Whitehead’s idea of pan-experientialism.
Indra’s Net thus becomes an invitation to awaken to the fact that experience is everywhere, not only in human life. Our lives are enriched, not depleted, both by the immanence of all things within us and by the way things transcend us and are more than us. In our own time, this awakening can take social form in a yearning for an ecological civilization in which human beings live with respect and care for the entire community of life and for one another. That, too, is part of the social aspiration of a Whiteheadian understanding of Indra’s Net.