Essay 21. Tiantai in brief: a guide¶

Where this essay stands. This essay examines the first form of the perfect teaching in China, where two lines converge. In doctrinal classification, the three periods of the Saṃdhinirmocana and Jizang's four levels develop into Tiantai's system of five periods and eight teachings. In philosophical doctrine, the debate over the two truths becomes Tiantai's doctrine of three truths. Yet the three truths rest on precisely the verse read closely in Essay 18 of this book, the verse on dharmas arising from causes and conditions. A comparison is therefore inevitable. Essay 18 reads the verse as the joint name for the theorem's three clauses; Tiantai reads it as the perfect integration of the three truths of emptiness, the provisional, and the middle. Which reading holds up, or whether each can occupy its own place, is this essay's principal question for judgment. Another question accompanies it. Tiantai sets up no warehouse. Its three thousand in one thought, all complete in the present thought, stands opposite the Yogācāra warehouse approach. It too must pass the test of accepting its status as a designation. Chapter 3 examines whether it is another theory of mechanisms or something else.

Length and format. The essay retains the name "in brief," but has become an expanded version of that format. Original textual evidence accompanies each chapter, and verdicts are tabulated. Its format matches Essays 20 and 22; points to expand in a full exposition remain on the list of topics reserved for later.

The actual state of the materials. Beyond the four major items, everything on the original acquisition list is now present. Five works have arrived in the collection: the Meaning of the Four Teachings, the Outline of the Four Teachings of Tiantai, the Aids to Calming and Contemplation, the Profound Meaning of Guanyin (the source of the doctrine of inherent evil), and the Diamond Scalpel. The text of the Ten Gates of Nonduality accompanies Zhili's Notes Pointing Out the Essentials (the case file on "taking principle as object and cutting off the nine"; see Essay 22). The Nirvāṇa, Vimalakīrti, and Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom, among other texts, are available for consultation alongside the volume. No items remain outstanding on this essay's acquisition list.

The route through six chapters. Chapter 1 covers founding and lineage through Huiwen, Huisi, and Zhiyi. It describes a school that registers its descent in texts and recounts the loss and return of its doctrinal corpus. Chapter 2 covers the three truths and three contemplations, examining Tiantai's reading of the verse of the three "is" clauses. It proceeds from Huiwen's textual warrant to the main exposition of contemplation in fascicle 5 and the acknowledgment in fascicle 3 that the interpretation rests on contemplating the mind, comparing them directly with Essay 18 for one of the principal judgments. Chapter 3 examines three thousand in one thought, the mechanism of inherent inclusion, against the warehouse of Essay 20. It also records the examination of the dispute over sustaining support in the original passage. Chapter 4 covers the five periods and eight teachings, in which doctrinal classification becomes an established system. The original five-flavor analogy and its detailed conditions are examined together for the second principal judgment. Chapter 5 presents calming and contemplation as an operating manual, with two lists (objects and vehicles), the four samādhis, the six identities as a classification of stages, and a sample passage on walking. Chapter 6 gives three overall judgments, tabulates twelve clauses, inventories open questions, and lists contributions before passing the argument on to Huayan.