Chapter 2. The three truths and three contemplations: Tiantai's reading of the verse of the three "is" clauses¶

We have already read this verse in Essay 18, Chapter 6: dharmas arising from the many causes and conditions, I say, are precisely nonbeing; they are also provisional designation, and also the meaning of the middle way. There it was read as the joint name for the theorem's three clauses. Emptiness is the aspect of rejection, and provisional designation is the positive mechanism at the E2 level. The middle way is the joint name for the double rejection together with preservation, not a third metaphysical position. Tiantai reads the verse as three truths: the truth of emptiness, the truth of the provisional, and the truth of the middle. The three contemplations in one mind contemplate all three perfectly in a single thought. Comparing these readings is this essay's first principal judgment.

The reading begins with Huiwen, and Huiwen's warrant already has two levels of formulation. Fascicle 27 of the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom poses its own difficulty: if knowledge of all things and knowledge of all modes are attained in one mind, why also say that one attains knowledge of all modes through the completion of knowledge of all things, and cuts off the residual habits of affliction through knowledge of all modes? The answer first establishes the actual state of affairs: "In reality, all are attained at one time. Here, to make people believe in the perfection of wisdom, they are spoken of in successive, differentiated grades." It then adds: "Furthermore, although attained in one mind, there is also a sequence of beginning, middle, and end."¹ Actual attainment is simultaneous; its verbal exposition is sequential. The reason for speaking sequentially is pedagogical, to make people believe. Huiwen takes the side of the actual state of affairs in establishing the school. Yet this way of registering actuality and speech at separate levels itself becomes a template for Tiantai's reading. The Profound Meaning cites the passage and adds its own gloss: "The three knowledges are attained in one mind," with neither before nor after; "only to speak to people and make it easy for them to understand are they spoken of under the names of three knowledges."² The first lesson the ancestral master reads out of his warrant is to hang the tag "adapted to the audience" on every statement of sequence.

First consider the formats of quotation; they already tell us something. In answering the doubter in fascicle 1, Calming and Contemplation preserves the verse's original wording and adds a statement of authorization: "There are, however, seventy Indian commentators on the treatise. One should not affirm Qingmu and reject all the other masters."³ With seventy commentators, no single school has exclusive authority over the reading. Fascicle 1 of the Profound Meaning, however, quotes the same verse as "Dharmas arising from causes and conditions are precisely empty, precisely provisional, precisely the middle." Four lines are compressed into three "is precisely" statements, each assigned its meaning in the accompanying explanation: precisely empty means not annihilation into nothingness; precisely provisional means nondual; precisely the middle means not different; dharmas arising from causes and conditions means pervading every place.⁴ Fascicle 3 of Calming and Contemplation also matches the verse to four kinds of four truths: dharmas arising from causes and conditions are the four truths of arising and ceasing; "I say they are precisely empty" gives the four truths of nonarising; "they are also provisional designation" gives the immeasurable four truths; and "also called the meaning of the middle way" gives the four truths of nonproduction.⁵ In Zhiyi's hands one verse has at least three uses: preserving the wording, the three "is precisely" statements, and the four correspondences. Text and meaning remain separately accounted for. The original verse is the base text; the correspondences are interpretations. Tiantai itself knows which belongs to which level.

The main exposition establishing contemplation is in fascicle 5 of Calming and Contemplation, derived sentence by sentence. It first derives the three truths. When dharma-nature and ignorance combine, there are all dharmas, including the aggregates, elements, sense bases, and so forth. This is the conventional truth. All elements and sense bases are one dharma-realm. This is the ultimate truth. Neither one nor all is the ultimate truth of the middle way. It then establishes the three contemplations sentence by sentence: "If one dharma is all dharmas, this is what arises from causes and conditions; this is provisional designation, the contemplation of the provisional. If all dharmas are precisely one dharma, 'I say they are precisely empty': this is the contemplation of emptiness. If neither one nor all, this is the contemplation of the middle way. When one is empty, all are empty; there is nothing provisional or middle that is not empty: this is comprehensive contemplation of emptiness. When one is provisional, all are provisional; there is nothing empty or middle that is not provisional: this is comprehensive contemplation of the provisional. When one is the middle, all are the middle; there is nothing empty or provisional that is not the middle: this is comprehensive contemplation of the middle. These are precisely the inconceivable three contemplations in one mind taught by the Middle Treatise. It is likewise as one passes through all dharmas."⁶ The passage has three formal features. First, all three truths and three contemplations are established through sentences quantified by one and all: one dharma as all dharmas is the provisional; all dharmas as precisely one dharma is emptiness; neither one nor all is the middle. The threefold division of labor lies in the direction of the quantifiers. Nowhere does it involve three domains of objects. Second, each of the three comprehensive contemplations carries an exclusion clause: when one is empty, all are empty; there is nothing provisional or middle that is not empty. Each contemplation sweeps the entire domain, so three universal operators act on the same domain. The grammar of perfect integration is written into these three exclusion clauses, directly opposing a reading that divides them into separate domains. Third, the closing sentence, "It is likewise as one passes through all dharmas," declares that the method can be applied elsewhere. This is a general operation, not a description of some exceptional realm. The passage signs off with "precisely what the Middle Treatise teaches," registering components derived from contemplating the mind under the Middle Treatise's name. Zhiyi himself discloses the nature of this registration in fascicle 3.

The disclosure in fascicle 3 is the most important testimony in the entire case. The passage on the three knowledges in one mind begins with the analogy of the five eyes. Of the Tathāgata's five eyes, "Although there are five eyes, they are not actually divided. With reference to just one eye, it has five functions and can illuminate five objects." The three calmings in one mind form three eyes that see the three truths; the three contemplations in one mind form three knowledges that know the three objects. Yet "objects and truths differ only as left and right; seeing and knowing are different names, like 眼 and 目, both meaning 'eye'; they should not be expounded separately." The conclusion is the sentence quoted in the earlier verdict: "Although spoken of in three ways, in reality it is only one inconceivable dharma." Immediately afterward comes a direct statement about his method: "Such an explanation is based on contemplating the mind. It does not, in fact, come from reading the scriptures and arranging things in a sequence. To avert people's suspicion and doubt, and to increase faith, since it fortunately accords with the sūtras, we cite them merely as evidence."⁷ This passage settles the authorization question raised at the start of the chapter within the text itself. It registers the source of the three contemplations as contemplation of the mind, and the function of scriptural quotation as increasing faith. Scriptural evidence is ratification, not derivation. Chapter 1's general principle of teaching the dharma-gates practiced in one's own mind here becomes a specific clause. On this book's measure of self-awareness, it is rare among the schools' texts: the legislator reports what his quotations are for. The grammar of the analogies also deserves an entry: one eye with five functions, three eyes on one face. Every analogy chosen places different functions in one place rather than on stacked layers.

The gloss on the middle truth follows. In the section explaining essence, the Profound Meaning quotes Vajragarbha's four expressions for the Buddha's exceedingly subtle wisdom: emptiness and existence, nondual, not different, and inexhaustible. It glosses them one by one. It explains "not different" thus: "There is no separate middle way apart from emptiness and existence; hence 'not different.'" It immediately adds its own assessment: "This too agrees with Nāgārjuna's meaning."⁴ The middle way is not another thing erected outside emptiness and existence. If this sentence holds, Tiantai's middle truth is not a third domain of objects. The perfectly integrated three truths are three aspects of speaking about the same dependently arisen dharmas. The Chinese character 即, rendered here as "is precisely," is an exegetical connective, not a declaration of ontological identity. In this book's notation, the truth of emptiness corresponds to rejection, the truth of the provisional to preservation, and the truth of the middle to the joint name of these two aspects. The reading in terms of three truths is a variant, within the perfect teaching, of the reading in terms of levels of assertion. It is isomorphic with Essay 18's reading of a joint name.

The graded table has already catalogued the inferior reading. Above the seven kinds of two truths, fascicle 2 of the Profound Meaning establishes five kinds of three truths, assigned teaching by teaching. For the middle where the distinct enters the shared, "Within this teaching, discussion of the middle makes it only different from emptiness. The middle has no function and does not comprise all dharmas." The distinct teaching's three truths "set the middle in relation to the ultimate. The middle is principle alone." Only with the perfect three truths do we reach "Not only does the middle way fully comprise the Buddha's dharmas; the ultimate and the conventional do so as well. The three truths are perfectly integrated: one is three, three are one."² The table matters because the reading that enshrines the middle truth as an inactive, wondrous substance outside emptiness and existence already has a name and a place on Tiantai's own chart. It is called the exclusive middle and assigned to the distinct teaching. The four Chinese characters 中无功用, "the middle has no function," are its verdict within that chart. Reification of the middle truth is a risk among later followers. With this table the risk can be located more precisely. Such a reader not only violates the clauses of Essay 18, but is automatically demoted under Tiantai's own rules. The gate of the perfect teaching will not admit that reading.

The risk must still be located truthfully. The Profound Meaning distinguishes the "separately arrayed three truths" from the "perfectly integrated three truths, the wondrous dharma."⁴ Zhiyi establishes perfect integration as wondrous to prevent the three truths from being read as three steps on a staircase. Yet there are later followers who read perfect integration as an ontological declaration and enshrine the middle truth as the wondrous substance of an exclusive middle. Such propositions are of type D3 and must come within Essay 18's jurisdiction for examination. The grammar of the three truths and three contemplations divides labor by the direction of quantifiers, not by domains. It belongs to the same family as the distinctions of orientation in the next essay's six characteristics and ten mysteries. A direct comparison of the two perfect teachings on this point awaits Essay 22. Draft verdict: in the legislator's own text, Tiantai's reading is isomorphic with this book's. On the legislative side, a gloss blocks reification of the middle truth, and the classificatory chart has already reserved a place for it. The evidence table and final judgment go to Chapter 6.

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