Guide to This Part¶

Where this part stands. The first form of the Chinese perfect teaching. Two lines converge here. The line of doctrinal classification: from the three turnings of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra and Jizang's four tiers to Tiantai's five periods and eight teachings, at which point classification becomes an institution in its fully constituted form. The doctrinal line: the dispute over the two truths turns, in Tiantai, into a doctrine of three truths, and what the three truths rest upon is precisely the verse that Part 18 of this book read through line by line, the verse on whatever arises from causes and conditions. This part therefore has a collation appointed for it in advance: one and the same verse, which Part 18 read as the joint name of the theorem's three clauses and Tiantai reads as the three truths (empty, provisional, middle) in perfect fusion. Which of the two readings holds up, or whether each of them keeps its own post, is this part's main verdict. A second question runs alongside it. Tiantai sets up no storehouse: three thousand in one thought, complete in the present thought. That is a science of machinery of another kind, standing over against the storehouse route of consciousness-only, and it has the same gate to pass — whether it can rest content in the standing of what is nominally posited.

Scale and format. A treatment in brief, on the same specification as Parts 16, 17, 19 and 20; the skeleton is drawn up at full-treatment scale, so that it can be expanded in place hereafter.

The state of the materials. The four principal works are already in the corpus: the Lotus Sūtra, the Fahua xuanyi (Profound Meaning of the Lotus), the Mohe zhiguan (Great Calming and Contemplation), and the Fahua wenju (Words and Phrases of the Lotus). The acquisitions list is entered in the planning file: the Sijiao yi, the Tiantai sijiao yi, the Guanyin xuanyi, in which the doctrine of nature-evil stands, the Zhiguan fuxing, the Shi buer men, and the Jin'gang bei.

How the six chapters run. Chapter 1, the founding and the lineage: Huiwen, Huisi, Zhiyi, and the line of transmission that claims Nāgārjuna for its distant ancestor. Chapter 2, the three truths and the threefold contemplation: the Tiantai reading of the verse of the three "it is", collated head-on with Part 18, and the first of the main verdicts. Chapter 3, three thousand in one thought: the mechanism of nature-inclusion, set against the storehouse of Part 20. Chapter 4, the five periods and eight teachings: doctrinal classification in its fully constituted form, where the three lines are gathered in, and the second of the main verdicts. Chapter 5, calming and contemplation: the operating manual. Chapter 6, the verdict and the handoff: open cases logged, the contribution ledger, and the handoff to Huayan.