In the T’ien-t’ai/Tendai tradition, kuan-hsin or kanjin (literally, the “contemplation of the mind”) generally denotes meditative practices, in contrast to doctrinal study (chiao-hsiang, kyōsō). The choice of “the mind” as the object of contemplation is grounded in a passage of the Hua-yen Ching: “The mind, the Buddha, and all living beings: these three are without distinction.” Chih-i reasoned that, for novice practitioners, the “Buddha” as an object of contemplation would be too deep, while “living beings” would be too broad. Contemplating one’s own mind, however, is easy.

However, in his commentary Pa-hua wen-chii (Words and phrases of the Lotus Sūtra), Chih-i uses the term kanjin in a somewhat different sense as the last of the “four modes of interpretation” (ssu-shih, shishaku), a four-part hermeneutical guideline for interpreting the “words and phrases” of the Lotus Sūtra. The first is to see the sūtra’s words and phrases in terms of “causes and conditions” (yin-yüan, innen)—that is, how they represent the Buddha’s response to the specific receptivity of his hearers. The second, “correlation with teachings” (yüeh-chiao, yakkyō), is to understand them in terms of each of the “four teachings of conversion “—the categories into which Chih-i analyzed the Buddhist teachings. The third, pen-chi or honjaku, is to understand them from the two viewpoints of the “trace teaching” and the “origin teaching,” the two exegetical divisions into which Chih-i analyzed the Lotus Sūtra. Fourth, having grasped the meaning of a particular word or phrase from these three doctrinal perspectives, one then internalizes it, contemplating its meaning with respect to one’s own mind. In this case, the “words and phrases” of the Lotus Sūtra are understood as referring not to abstract or external events, but to the practitioner’s own contemplation and insight. For example, in the kanjin reading of the sūtra’s opening passage, “Thus have I heard at one time” the word “I” (wo, ga) is interpreted as follows: “The dharmas produced by dependent origination prove, on contemplation, to be at once empty, conventionally existent, and the middle. ‘Empty’ means that self (wo) is without self. ‘Conventionally existent’ means that self is distinguished [from other]. ‘The middle’ means the true and subtle self. The words “at one time” are interpreted in this way: “To contemplate the mind as first empty, then conventionally existent, and then as the middle is the sequential mind-contemplation. To contemplate the mind as simultaneously empty, conventionally existent, and the middle is the perfect and subtle mind-contemplation.” In these instances, words and phrases of the Lotus are taken as revealing the threefold contemplation and discernment. (Page 157)