With regard to the abandonment of the position of the Tripiṭaka Teaching, Chih-i says that the Tripiṭaka Teaching is intended for the practitioner to get rid of evil and to aspire for wholesomeness. If his wholesomeness is established, the doctrine of this teaching should be abolished for the sake of motivating the practitioner to continue to pursue his practice. Along with the abandonment of the doctrine of the Tripiṭaka Teaching, its practice and position should be abandoned as well.

With regard to the abandonment of the position of the Common Teaching, Chih-i denotes that the Common Teaching is intended for the person not to remain satisfied with the perception of emptiness. As the truth of emptiness is only a partial truth, the practitioner should continue to perceive no-emptiness (e.g. provisional existence). From this point of view, the doctrine of the Common Teaching, along with its knowledge, practice and position, should be abolished.

With regard to the abandonment of the position of the Separate Teaching, Chih-i asserts that the Separate Teaching is intended for the bodhisattva to destroy delusions of lacking innumerable knowledge of saving beings. When this task is fulfilled, the teaching is complete, whereby the position of the Separate Teaching should be demolished. In addition, Chih-i states that another reason for the abandonment of the Separate Teaching is that the Separate Teaching still expresses the word of other’s mind to suit the inclination of beings. To be specific, Chih-i stresses that all practices and positions before the Ten Stages should be abolished. However, the position of the Ten Stages and the position of the Buddha should not be abandoned (if speaking in terms of attainment of the Buddhahood), and should be abandoned (if speaking in terms of different levels of attainment). Finally, for the sake of establishing the position of the Perfect Teaching, the position of the Separate Teaching should be abandoned.

With regard to the position of the Perfect Teaching, Chih-i affirms that as all eight positions of the Perfect Teaching are true positions which are not the result of the expedient teaching, but rather, derived directly from the ultimate teaching that expresses the word of the Buddha’s own mind, they do not have to be abolished.