Chapter 0 · Asking the Way

Opening

Perhaps you have read a few sutras. Perhaps you have even sat through a few incense-sticks of meditation. Reading is one world; sitting down is another. The principles on the page and the work on the cushion each live a life of their own, and when you try to bring them together, you do not know where to begin.

This book begins by leading you through that very gap. In the summer of the fourteenth year of Kaihuang under the Sui, the Great Master Zhizhe taught for an entire summer at Yuquan Monastery in Jingzhou. His disciple Guanding recorded those teachings as a book. Its first eight characters say:

「Calming and contemplation, lucid and still—unheard of in former ages.」 〔灌頂記《摩訶止觀》卷一·T46n1911 0001a07·待譯〕 『In today's words: Calming and contemplation are both lucid and still—something former ages had never heard.』

Chapter 9 will let the source text itself explain what the two words “calming” and “contemplation” mean. The opening account of this same book has another sentence:

「This calming-and-contemplation is the Dharma-gate that Tiantai Zhizhe taught from what he himself practiced within his own mind.」 〔同卷·0001b13·待譯〕 『In today's words: In this work on calming-and-contemplation, Tiantai Zhizhe spoke forth the Dharma-gate that he had personally walked within his own mind.』

He was not commenting on someone else's book. He was telling others about a road he had walked within his own mind. Teaching and contemplation—the words left by one who walked the road, and your own walking of that road by following those words—are two faces of one thing in Tiantai. This chapter establishes no doctrinal proposition. It simply receives the question you bring at this moment, explains why the teaching of this One Vehicle was spoken, lets you glimpse the destination, and finally gives you a map.

1 · Practicing in Accordance with the Dharma — The Question Is about the Work

At the opening of Chapter 3 of The Sūtra of Golden Light, the Supreme King, the bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha rises from his seat, bows at the Buddha's feet, and asks not about terminology but about what to do:

「World-Honored One! How should a bodhisattva mahāsattva practice in accordance with the Dharma with respect to the Tathāgatas' profound mystery?」 〔義淨譯《金光明最勝王經·分別三身品》·T16n0665 0408b09–10·本版《金光明》譯注品三〕 『World-Honored One, how should a bodhisattva mahāsattva practice in accordance with the Dharma with respect to the Tathāgatas’ profound mystery?』〔本版譯注品三·白話層〕

The profound mystery stands before him. There is only one question: how does one practice so that the practice accords with the Dharma? Replace 「bodhisattva mahāsattva」 with yourself, the person opening this page, and the question is not remote at all. The sutra's question is already grounded in the work of practice. That is precisely the kind of question these twelve chapters will carry from beginning to end.

2 · One Great Cause — Why the Teaching of This Vehicle Was Spoken

Why, then, were those words left behind? In the “Skillful Means” chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha explains it himself:

「The buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world for only one great cause. Śāriputra! What does it mean that the buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world for only one great cause? The buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world because they wish to open the Buddha's knowing-and-seeing for sentient beings and cause it to become pure; because they wish to reveal the Buddha's knowing-and-seeing to sentient beings; because they wish to cause sentient beings to awaken to the Buddha's knowing-and-seeing; and because they wish to cause sentient beings to enter the path of the Buddha's knowing-and-seeing. Śāriputra! This is the one great cause for which the buddhas appear in the world.」 〔羅什譯《妙法蓮華經·方便品》·T09n0262 0007a21–28·本版《法華》譯注品二〕 『The buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world for only one great cause. Śāriputra! What does it mean that the buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world for only one great cause? The buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world because they wish to open the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing for sentient beings and cause it to become pure; because they wish to reveal the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing to sentient beings; because they wish to cause sentient beings to awaken to the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing; and because they wish to cause sentient beings to enter the path of the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing. Śāriputra! This is the one great cause for which the buddhas appear in the world.』〔本版譯注品二·白話層〕

Only for one great cause: to open, reveal, awaken to, and enter—to open the Buddha's knowing-and-seeing for sentient beings and make it pure; to reveal it to sentient beings; to awaken sentient beings to it; and to lead sentient beings into its path. In all four clauses, 「sentient beings」 are the object. Chapter 8 will explain how this sentence sustains Tiantai's reading that gathers the three vehicles into the One Vehicle. For now, remember only this: the teaching of this vehicle was not spoken for a library. It was spoken 「to cause sentient beings to enter.」

3 · Complete in the Three Bodies — A First Glimpse of the Destination

Before setting out, a traveler ought to glimpse the destination. In answer to Ākāśagarbha's question, the Buddha first promises to distinguish and explain. He then begins by placing the fruit directly before him:

「Good man! Every Tathāgata has three kinds of body. What are the three? The first is the emanation body, the second is the responsive body, and the third is the dharma-body. When these three bodies are complete, they embrace unsurpassed, complete, perfect awakening. If one rightly understands them, one swiftly emerges from birth and death.」 〔同品·T16n0665 0408b12–15〕 『Good man, every Tathāgata has three kinds of body. What are the three? The first is the emanation body, the second is the responsive body, and the third is the dharma-body. When these three bodies are complete, they embrace unsurpassed, complete, perfect awakening. If one rightly understands them, one swiftly emerges from birth and death.』〔本版譯注品三·白話層〕

The fruit is not a concluding statement but a 「body.」 Where the three bodies are complete, unsurpassed awakening is embraced; and the sutra also promises that one who rightly understands them swiftly emerges from birth and death. This book gives the three bodies no separate chapter. Their complete exposition lies in Chapter 3 of the annotated Golden Light. When this book reaches the Buddha's long-enduring lifespan in Chapter 8, it will meet them again. For now, carry away the promise held in one word: swiftly.

4 · The Map, and the Road beyond It

Apart from this opening chapter, the book has twelve chapters in three parts. Sources and Formation, Part One, comprises Chapters 1 through 4: how the three Chinese translations of the Lotus circulated together; how Huisi and Zhiyi read the sutra into a school; how the Three Great Works were compiled and later revived; and how subsequent generations studied and disputed them. The Teaching, Part Two, comprises Chapters 5 through 8: how doctrinal classification gives order to a thousand teachings and ten thousand words; how the Fivefold Profound Meaning reads a sutra title; how the hundred realms and thousand suchnesses are gathered within one moment of mind; and how opening the provisional to reveal the real gathers the three into the one. Contemplation and Practice, Part Three, comprises Chapters 9 through 12: three gates for sitting down; four practices for upholding the sutra in an evil age; the Golden Light repentance in act and principle; and, after the reading is done, the road of carrying the sutra. Reading straight through is excellent. Entering by the chapter that most presses upon you now is equally possible.

The Mohe Zhiguan announces the three gates of Part Three at its very opening:

「Tiantai transmitted from Nanyue three kinds of calming-and-contemplation: first, gradual; second, indeterminate; third, perfect-and-sudden. All are Mahāyāna, all take the true mark as their object, and all are called calming-and-contemplation.」 〔《摩訶止觀》·T46n1911 0001c01–03·待譯〕 『In today's words: Tiantai transmitted from Nanyue three kinds of calming-and-contemplation: first, gradual; second, indeterminate; and third, perfect-and-sudden. All three are Mahāyāna, all take the true mark as their object, and all bear the same name: calming-and-contemplation.』

The gradual is like climbing a staircase, the indeterminate like a jewel reflecting sunlight, the perfect-and-sudden like rising directly into the air. Chapter 9 will bring in the original wording of all three similes and examine it closely.

Beyond the map, the road already extends in two directions: this edition's annotated Lotus Sutra in twenty-eight chapters, already published, and its annotated Golden Light in thirty-one chapters. Each has five complete layers: source text, vernacular, textual study, exegesis, and heart-essence. At the end of each chapter here, follow the citations into those annotated translations. When you finish an annotated translation, the sutra itself will be in your own hands. A complete translation of the sixty fascicles of the Three Great Works is a longer road. This book will grow alongside it.

Zhizhe taught for a whole summer at Yuquan Monastery. Your summer begins on this page.

Author · Shi Huijing CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · 二〇二六 · 夏