In Huayan thought, interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda) is not limited to a linear chain of causes and effects but is understood as a total, mutual implication of all phenomena. Every dharma arises only through its relations with all other dharmas, so that nothing possesses an independent essence. This vision is often expressed through the image of a non-temporal network in which each event both conditions and is conditioned by all others. Interdependence here describes the very structure of present reality, rather than a sequence unfolding over time. The cosmos is thus seen as a seamless field of interdependent events, a dharmadhātu in which individual things exist only as relational nodes within the whole.

The metaphor of Indra’s Net vividly conveys this radical interdependence. The universe is likened to an infinite net of jewels, with each jewel reflecting all the others. Each reflection, in turn, contains all other reflections, suggesting infinite levels of mutual containment and reflection. This image shows that to alter one jewel is, in principle, to affect the entire net, because each phenomenon both contains and expresses the totality. In Huayan terms, “one is all, all is one”: any single phenomenon is the whole cosmos seen from one vantage point, and the whole is nothing over and above the interdependent functioning of its parts.

This understanding of interdependence is closely tied to the relation between principle (li) and phenomena (shi). Li, as ultimate principle or suchness, is not separate from concrete events; it is fully present in each phenomenon, and each phenomenon completely embodies li. Because all things are dependently arisen and empty of self-nature, there is no obstruction between li and shi: the ultimate is transparently expressed in the particular, and the particular reveals the ultimate without remainder. Likewise, there is no obstruction among phenomena themselves (shi–shi wu’ai); any phenomenon can “enter into” and “contain” any other, because none has a fixed, independent boundary. This non-obstruction shows how universality and particularity, similarity and difference, integration and disintegration can coexist without contradiction.

From this perspective, interdependence is the key to understanding both reality and awakening. To know one thing truly is to see its entire web of conditions, for each dharma is inseparable from all others within the dharmadhātu. The Buddha’s wisdom is thus portrayed as insight into this infinitely interpenetrating network, where every moment and every phenomenon are mutually arising and mutually containing. Interdependence becomes not merely a doctrine about the origin of suffering, but a vision of a cosmos in which emptiness, suchness, and the living world of concrete events are perfectly united.