T'ien-t'ai

T'ien-t'ai. A school of Chinese Buddhism that dates from the late 6th and early 7th centuries, and which takes its name from the site of its head temple, Mt. T'ien-t'ai in Chekiang Province on China's eastern seaboard. The de facto founder is the monk Chih-i (538–97), but tradition regards him as the third patriarch of the school, the first two being Hui-wen (fl. c.550), and Chih-i's teacher, the meditation master Hui-ssu (515–77). T'ien-t'ai is known for three innovative features: its system of doctrinal classification (Chin., p'an-chiao), its highly articulated system of meditation, and its doctrine of the Three Truths.

Doctrinal Classification

One of the problems with which Chih-i dealt was that of making sense of the disorderly mass of Buddhists texts that had been translated into Chinese by the end of the 6th century. Buddhism had entered China at a time when the Mahāyāna teachings were just coming into prominence in India, and both doctrines and scriptures continued to develop, while older texts of the Hīnayāna variety also circulated. It was difficult to understand how these heterogeneous and often contradictory scriptures, all purporting to be the word of the Buddha, formed any sort of unified teaching. Although attempts at doctrinal systematization had been attempted before, these had largely been based on judging the degree to which a text accurately gave the Buddha's teaching. Chih-i created a set of criteria that contextualized scriptures according to three standards: the period of the Buddha's life in which a scripture was preached, the audience to whom it was preached, and the teaching method the Buddha employed to convey his message. The first criterion yielded the scheme of ‘Five Periods’. (1) The Avataṃsaka period (three weeks) immediately followed the Buddha's enlightenment (bodhi), and was preached while he was still in an ecstatic state to convey the entire content of his vision. However, beings were unable to grasp the totality of the message, so the Buddha quickly changed his teaching. (2) In the Āgama period (twelve years) the Buddha preached the Hīnayāna scriptures in order to provide an easy introduction to the teachings. (3) In the Vaipulya period (eight years) the Buddha began slowly introducing Mahāyāna themes and undercutting the teachings of the previous period so as to clear the way for a fuller understanding. (4) In the Prajñā-pāramitā period (22 years) the Buddha taught the full Mahāyāna doctrine of universal emptiness (śūnyatā). (5) During the period of the Lotus and Nirvāṇa Sūtras (eight years) the Buddha switched from the negative language of the Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtras to the positive language of the Lotus Sūtra, which affirmed the Buddha-nature of all beings and the identity and common goal of the so-called ‘three vehicles’ of Buddhism. Because the Buddha at this time returned to teaching the full content of his enlightenment, the Lotus Sūtra is considered the highest of all scriptures and most directly expressive of the Buddha's meaning by the T'ien-t'ai school. The criterion of intended audience produced four divisions in scripture: (1) the Piṭaka teachings were given for the two vehicles of the Śrāvakas (Śrāvakayāna) and Pratyekabuddhas; (2) the common teachings were intended for the above two groups, and also for lower-level Bodhisattvas just starting out on the Mahāyāna path; (3) the Distinct teachings were for Bodhisattvas on the Mahāyāna path only; and (4) the ‘Round’ (or Perfect) teachings gave a complete account of the totality of reality for the highest Bodhisattvas. Finally, the criterion of teaching method gave another four categories: (1) the Abrupt teaching was intended to jolt practitioners into a sudden realization of the complete truth; (2) the Gradual teaching took a step-by-step approach to teaching and led practitioners systematically to a realization of the truth; (3) the Secret teaching is one in which the Buddha spoke to a large crowd, but veiled his message so that only a specific person or persons would catch his meaning—it also indicates a situation in which not all members of the audience are aware of each other, as when in several Mahāyāna scriptures it is revealed that gods and Bodhisattvas have been listening to the Buddha's discourse undetected by the less spiritually advanced members—and (4) the Indeterminate teachings, in which the members of the audience are aware of each others' presence, but the Buddha speaks to each one individually while appearing to address the crowd at once.

Meditation

Chih-i and his teacher Hui-ssu were both masters of meditation, and two of Chih-i's works, the Mo-ho chih-kuan (Great Calming and Contemplation) and Hsiao chih-kuan (Small Calming and Contemplation) take a great number of methods of meditation and systematize them. While a complete exposition of these methods is beyond the scope of this work, it should be noted that this comprehensive classification of techniques fed into other traditions that would arise alongside of or later than T'ien-t'ai. For example, it included methods of exercising mindfulness in everyday activities and of perceiving the ultimate truth through the contemplation of phenomenal reality, which would directly influence the development of Ch'an. It also included methods of invoking the name of and visualizing the form of Amitābha Buddha, which would give new impetus to the already-existing Pure Land tradition. (Many of the organizers of large-scale Pure Land devotional societies in the Sung dynasty were T'ien-t'ai monks.)

The Three Truths

Chih-i felt some dissatisfaction with the essentially negative metaphysical analysis of the Madhyamaka teachings (as seen by the fact that, in the ‘Five periods’ portion of his doctrinal classification scheme, the Prajñā-pāramitā period is not the final period). Thus, Chih-i proposed the Three Truths: the truths of emptiness (śūnyatā), provisionality, and the middle. Chih-i also turned this middle truth from a statement about ontology to one that affirmed agency operating within the universe. Whereas Madhyamaka teachings of emptiness asserted how things existed in a dry and static way, saying merely that they lacked any inherent essence or self-nature, Chih-i characterized the final nature of things as consciousness (vijñāna), coining the term ‘Middle-Way Buddha-Nature’ (Chin., chung-tao fo-hsing). The omniscient mind of the Buddha took in all phenomenal reality, and so everything in the world was part of the Buddha's consciousness. This absolute mind thus operated through all things to work compassionately for the liberation of all beings. The fact that this mind took in defiled phenomena as well as pure phenomena led T'ien-t'ai to embrace a unique teaching: that the absolute mind had defiled as well as pure aspects; in other words, that immoral and impure things in the world served as the vehicle for the saving activity of the Buddha mind just as much as things that were pure did. T'ien-t'ai is the only school of Chinese Buddhism that attributes impure aspects to the Buddha-mind. For T'ien-t'ai, however, this was simply the logical outcome of attributing omniscience to the Buddha's mind—that it would perceive everything and thus incorporate everything, whether defiled or pure, into itself and make use of it to reach all beings.

History after Chih-i

T'ien-t'ai is the only one of the schools of Chinese Buddhism that derives its name from its geographical center (Mt. T'ien-t'ai) rather than from a central text (as the Hua-yen school does) or its method of practice (as Ch'an or Pure Land). This gave it a measure of stability and continuity, as those who resided on Mt. T'ien-t'ai felt the need to keep the vision and practices of the school alive. This allowed it to survive even the great persecution of Buddhism in 845 that destroyed all the other schools save the highly decentralized Ch'an and Pure Land. Chih-i was succeeded by his disciple of 20 years, Kuan-ting (561–632), who composed commentaries on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra after Chih-i's style. The sixth patriarch, Chan-jan (711–82) was instrumental in revitalizing T'ien-t'ai after it had lost some ground to the newly arisen Hua-yen, Ch'an, and esoteric schools (see esoteric Buddhism). He composed commentaries on scriptures and the works of Chih-i, and is also credited with an interesting doctrinal development. Building on Chih-i's doctrine of the pervasion of absolute mind through all phenomena and his term ‘Middle-way Buddha-nature’, Chan-jan asserted that all things, both animate and inanimate, possess Buddha-nature, and can thus attain enlightenment (bodhi). The school flourished greatly under his leadership. Two generations later, however, the Hui-ch'ang persecution of 845 broke out, and the temple complex on Mt. T'ien-t'ai was destroyed along with its library and manuscripts, and its clergy scattered. The school went into a steep decline after this, but did not die out. Korean disciples responded to invitations to bring the texts and teachings of the school back to the mountain, and it slowly began to rebuild. During the Sung dynasty, two eminent T'ien-t'ai monks, Ssu-ming Chih-li (960–1028) and Tsun-shih (964–1032) were very active not only in propagating T'ien-t'ai teachings, but in establishing large-scale Pure Land societies among clergy and educated laypeople.

Ssu-ming Chih-li also initiated a controversy that split the T'ien-t'ai school into two factions for the next several centuries. Beginning in the year 1000, this became known as the Shan-chia (‘mountain house’, i.e. orthodox) versus Shan-wai (‘off the mountain’, i.e. heterodox) controversy, and it touched on at least four separate issues regarding the authenticity of a particular version of one of Chih-i's works, the placement of a particular doctrine of Dependent Origination (pratītya-samutpāda) within either the ‘Distinct Teaching’ or elsewhere within the p'an-chiao framework, the relationship between the evil inherent in the absolute principle and the evil within particular beings, and the nature of the Pure Land. The Shan-chia/Shan-wai controversy provided fodder for a steady stream of treatises and letters well into the Ming dynasty. After this time, the school settled into a quiet existence, and by the end of the Ming dynasty, was less a self-standing school than a set of texts and doctrines in which some scholars might choose to specialize (although certain clergy still claimed to be part of the T'ien-t'ai school). Also, starting in the 9th century, with the visit of Saichō to China in search of Mt. T'ien-t'ai, the school came to Japan, where it became known as the Tendai school, one of the major traditions of Japanese Buddhism.