Chapter 4. The five periods and eight teachings: Doctrinal classification becomes an institution¶

Along the way, this book has collected three forms of doctrinal classification. The Saṃdhinirmocana's three periods distinguish the implicit from the explicit. Jizang's four levels successively demote the opponent's ultimate truth to his own conventional truth. In Tiantai this becomes a comprehensive institution. The introductory Outline of the Four Teachings opens with its general scheme: "The Wise Master of Tiantai used the five periods and eight teachings to classify and explain the sacred teachings of the Buddha's lifetime transmitted eastward, exhausting them without remainder."¹ The four Chinese characters 罄无不尽, "exhausting them without remainder," state the institution's ambition: not one sentence of the sacred teachings transmitted eastward is left outside the table. Chapter 1's account of the fate of the texts recorded the provenance of this source text: the loss and return of the doctrinal corpus and the outline's compilation by a Goryeo monk. One boundary must be drawn first: the institution's names were supplied by Diguan; they are not headings Zhiyi gave it himself. Three extant major works by Zhiyi total roughly 580,000 Chinese characters: the Profound Meaning, the Meaning of the Four Teachings, and Great Calming and Contemplation. The combined expression "five periods and eight teachings" (五时八教) appears not once; neither do the names of the two axes, "four methods of teaching" (化仪四教) and "four teachings of doctrinal content" (化法四教). Yet in Diguan's introduction of 13,000 characters, "five periods and eight teachings" appears twice, "four methods of teaching" three times, and "four teachings of doctrinal content" once.² Taken separately, the components each have their own provenance. The five periods are Zhiyi's: "five periods" occurs more than twenty times in the Profound Meaning. The content of the eight teachings is also Zhiyi's. Where fascicle 1 of the Profound Meaning reconciles the eight treasuries, it lists secret, indeterminate, sudden, and gradual together with Tripiṭaka, shared, distinct, and perfect, and says, "We now reconcile them through the eight teachings from the turning of the Dharma wheel onward." Diguan adds the packaging: he gathers the two groups of four teachings under the two axes of "methods" and "doctrinal content," then combines them with the five periods into a general scheme that can be recited from memory. Below, "five periods and eight teachings" uses this later established name. It does not imply that Zhiyi himself used these four Chinese characters as a heading.

Five periods and five flavors. The five periods arrange the teachings of the Buddha's lifetime in a sequence of guidance: Huayan, Deer Park, Vaipulya, Prajñā, and Lotus–Nirvāṇa. "These are the five periods, also called the five flavors."¹ The Profound Meaning explains, "With reference to the gradual, the five flavors can be elucidated."³ The five-flavor analogy originates in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra: "As milk comes from a cow, curds from milk, raw butter from curds, cooked butter from raw butter, and ghee from cooked butter, ghee is the highest." The scripture itself matches the analogy to the teachings: "The Buddha is likewise. From the Buddha come the twelve divisions of scripture; from the twelve divisions of scripture come the sūtras; from the sūtras come the Vaipulya scriptures; from the Vaipulya scriptures comes the perfection of wisdom; from the perfection of wisdom comes great nirvāṇa, which is like ghee. Ghee is an analogy for Buddha-nature."⁴ The highest cell in the original analogy is great nirvāṇa. Tiantai borrows its steps to establish the five periods and assigns the highest cell to the Lotus together with the Nirvāṇa. Borrowing an analogy and adjusting it is routine work in doctrinal classification. What matters are the conditions the original analogy carries with it. In the same scripture, the relation between milk and curds receives a double rejection: "Thus one cannot say that milk definitely contains the nature of curds. If one says that milk definitely contains no curds, why does milk not produce a rabbit's horns? Put poison in milk and the curds will kill a person. Thus one cannot say that milk definitely lacks the nature of curds." The Buddha also asks, "If milk definitely contained the nature of curds, what need would there be for conditioning causes?" He further uses paper and ink forming characters as an analogy: "Yet this paper originally has no characters; because they are originally absent, they are formed through conditions."⁴ The sequence of five flavors is a sequence of formation through conditions. Nature contains no stored timetable. If Tiantai's five periods are read as a fixed schedule for the disclosure of Buddha-nature, the first collision is with the original analogy's own conditions; the facts of scriptural bibliography come second. Read as a sequence adapted to the audience, they accord fully with the original analogy.

The two axes of the eight teachings. "The eight teachings are sudden, gradual, secret, indeterminate, Tripiṭaka, shared, distinct, and perfect. These are called the eight teachings. The four beginning with sudden are methods of teaching, like medical prescriptions in the world. The four beginning with Tripiṭaka are called doctrinal content, like distinguishing the flavors of medicines."¹ A prescription records how to administer; a flavor records what to administer. The two analogies thus distinguish the roles of the two axes. Among the four methods of teaching, sudden and gradual record the sequential form of exposition, while secret and indeterminate record the structure of benefit within a single teaching occasion: "The third, the secret teaching … may expound the sudden to this person and the gradual to that person. Neither knows of the other, yet each can gain benefit." "The fourth, the indeterminate teaching … The Buddha expounds the Dharma with one voice, and sentient beings each understand according to their kind … It can enable beings to gain sudden benefit from gradual exposition and gradual benefit from sudden exposition."¹ Sitting together but hearing differently, hearing the same but benefiting differently: audience parameters are formally built into the study of the characteristics of teachings. The axes do not have equal status, however. The textbook itself states: "As for the two teachings, secret and indeterminate, their doctrinal meaning is simply Tripiṭaka, shared, distinct, and perfect. The four methods of teaching end here."¹ The method axis carries no independent doctrinal content. All doctrine belongs to the four teachings of doctrinal content. By clarifying its own limits in this clause, the outline anticipates the judgment in Essay 19, Chapter 6: doctrinal classification equals grading of doctrine plus engineering for the audience.

The four teachings of doctrinal content: each definition is paired with a set of four truths. The Meaning of the Four Teachings defines the names one by one. The Tripiṭaka teaching "elucidates the principle of the four noble truths of arising and ceasing through causes and conditions. It primarily teaches the Hīnayāna and secondarily guides bodhisattvas." The shared teaching: "'Shared' means common. The three vehicles receive it in common, hence the name shared. This teaching elucidates the principle of the four truths of nonarising, in which causes and conditions are precisely empty. It is the initial gate of Mahāyāna, primarily for bodhisattvas and secondarily accessible to the two vehicles." The distinct teaching: "'Distinct' means not shared. This teaching is not expounded in common with persons of the two vehicles … It specifically guides bodhisattvas and does not involve the two vehicles. Hence śrāvakas in the assembly are like the deaf and mute." The perfect teaching: "'Perfect' means nonpartial. This teaching elucidates inconceivable causes and conditions. The two truths, the middle way, phenomena and principle are fully present, neither partial nor separate. It guides only those of the highest and sharpest faculties."⁵ Two formal features deserve to be read together. First, the four definitions each pair with a set of four truths: arising and ceasing, nonarising, immeasurable, and nonproduction. Fascicle 3 of Calming and Contemplation also matches the four lines of the verse of the three "is" clauses to this same grid, as quoted in Chapter 2. The grading axis of doctrinal classification and the reading of the verse meet on a single chart of the four truths. Teaching characteristics and contemplative practice use the same scale: excellence in both doctrine and contemplation is implemented through this structure. Second, every definition carries its own audience field: primarily the Hīnayāna, secondarily bodhisattvas; primarily bodhisattvas, secondarily the two vehicles; specifically bodhisattvas, without the two vehicles; only those of the highest and sharpest faculties. Doctrinal strength and audience parameters appear as pairs in the definitions. The two columns are recorded side by side even in the definitions of the individual components.

Seven kinds of two truths: the fine detail of the graded table. Fascicle 2 of the Profound Meaning first declares that the two truths could be stated simply: "Merely identifying dharma-nature as the ultimate truth, and ignorance and the twelve links of dependent arising as the conventional truth, is sufficient in meaning." Because people's minds are coarse and shallow, it expands them into a table: "First, real existence is the conventional; the cessation of real existence is the ultimate. Second, illusory existence is the conventional; illusory existence being precisely empty is the ultimate … Seventh, both illusory existence and illusory existence being precisely empty are the conventional; all dharmas tending toward existence, toward emptiness, and toward neither existence nor emptiness is the ultimate."⁶ Truth is not common property. The same pair of names for truths has seven semantic configurations, with each teaching holding its own version. There are also upward passages between teachings, explicitly described in terms of reception: "The distinct receives the shared: the fifth. The perfect receives the shared: the sixth. The perfect receives the distinct: the seventh." It then takes the seven versions through the five periods to calculate each period's composition: "Raw butter comprises seven kinds of two truths, six coarse and one wondrous. Cooked butter has six kinds, five coarse and one wondrous. The Lotus has only the one perfect pair of truths, without the six expedients: wondrous alone, not coarse."⁶ A matrix, morphisms of upgrading, and a table of proportions are all present. In Tiantai, doctrinal classification becomes a taxonomy on which calculations can be performed. Here is the strongest exhibit for the judgment that doctrinal classification carries logical content: the ordering of the seven kinds of two truths is a partial order of doctrinal strength, and reception is a reachability relation on that partial order.

The grammar of closure: opening the provisional and revealing the real. When its exposition reaches the Lotus, the Outline of the Four Teachings says: "Next, in teaching the Lotus, it opens up the preceding sudden and gradual and gathers them into neither sudden nor gradual. Hence it is called opening the provisional and revealing the real; also discarding the provisional and establishing the real; also gathering the three and returning them to the one."¹ The Profound Meaning has given both the reason for this closure and its status. The wondrous truth is originally present, but "although the Buddha knows this, he does not strive to expound it quickly." The earlier teachings, "although establishing things in various ways and making designations for sentient beings, are only speech following others' intentions, not the Buddha's own intent." At the Lotus, it "straightforwardly discards nonintegration and speaks only of integration, bringing everyone in one assembly to the same flavor of the path. Only then does it fulfill the Tathāgata's original intent in appearing in the world."⁷ The four Chinese characters 随他意语, "speech following others' intentions," are the crucial registration tag. The establishments of the first four periods are tagged in a batch as adapted to the audience, under the same family rule as the Explanatory Treatise's successive, differentiated grades in Chapter 2 and the "as expedient" tag in Chapter 3. Assessment in theorem form takes two entries. First, logical content: the grading of doctrinal content is a table of doctrinal strength. The shared teaching sees things as precisely empty; the distinct teaching proceeds through the three truths separately; the perfect teaching perfectly integrates the three truths. Broadly, these translate three grades of reading into teaching characteristics: rejection, separately arrayed levels, and the integrated joint name. The grading itself carries real logical content. Second, pedagogical content: if the succession of the five periods is read as a historical assertion about the Buddha's life, it clashes with the facts of scriptural bibliography. If read as an arrangement bringing a pedagogical sequence to completion, it is a pedagogical parameter and carries no new logical content. The grammar of opening the provisional and revealing the real is the same. The Profound Meaning says, "If the provisional is opened and the real revealed, all dharmas are the essence."³ Gathering the three into the one is secure when read as pedagogical closure; read as a historical assertion, it is a separate case.

The suspicion of self-exemption must be entered truthfully. The classifier occupies the perfect summit: who classifies the classifier? Under the principle of the same gate in Essay 18, Chapter 5, a grading standard applied only to other schools while exempting one's own is a tailored exemption. Half of Tiantai's self-checking clauses are present. The perfection of the perfect teaching means nonpartiality; perfect integration itself is an operating rule against separate arrangement, not a new domain of objects. The Profound Meaning's judgment of the wondrous dharma can serve as testimony. The other half concerns whether the perfect summit's immunity from further judgment is specified as an invariant rather than made a superior realm. The original text does not state this explicitly. It is registered as an open question and passed to Chapter 6.

References¶