The fundamental maxim of Tendai ethics is “to put on the robes of the Tathāgata, to occupy the seat of the Tathāgata, and to enter the abode of the Tathāgata,” in short, to live the life of the universal self.

Thus, faith means the communion of our soul with the Buddha-soul in its triune nature, our participation in his dignity and work. In other words, communion in faith presupposes a basic unity existing between the worshipper and the worshipped. One who realizes this fundamental oneness of our being with that of Buddha cannot but proceed to save others by leading them along the same pathway of Buddhist enlightenment. This exertion is moral life, the life of the Bodhisattva, the Buddha-to-be. Faith is perfected by moral life, as morality is based on faith.

The historical Buddha, Sākyamuni, is but one of those adaptive manifestations; he is a Buddha in the Nirmanakāya (Jap. Wō-jin), the “Condescension-body,” the concrete object of our faith. Yet he is the Buddha par excellence for us living in this world and in this world-period, because of the moral and metaphysical bond connecting a being and the world he lives in. Besides this condescending manifestation, Buddha reveals his wisdom and power, exhibiting them in the blissful glories of celestial existence. This supernal revelation is, again, adapted to the respective heights of enlightenment on the part of those who have made a certain advance in moral purity and spiritual vision. Hence the infinite varieties of Buddha’s Sambhogakāya (Jap, Hō-jin), the “Bliss-body,” and hence the varieties of celestial abodes for different blissful lives. Among those abodes of bliss, however, Tendai Buddhism gives a special preference to the “Paradise of Vulture Peak” (Jap. Ryōzen-Jōdo), an idealization of the Vulture Peak where Buddha Sākyamuni is said to have revealed the truth of the Lotus based on the metaphysical conception of the connection between the world and the individual.

According to the doctrine of the Tendai school, Buddha is really a man and yet the Truth itself. As a man of historical reality, he attained the full truth of existence and lived accordingly; he is the Tathāgata, the Truth-winner. This aspect of his being is, however, but a manifestation of the Dharmaui, the fundamental nature of the universe, which consists in the correlated unity of all the varieties and variations of existence. In other words, in Buddha we see, the one who has come down from the height of enlightenment to live among us in order to reveal the real nature of our being. He is the Tathāgata, the Truth-revealer, and he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. This is the aspect of his personality expressed by the term Dharma-kāya (Jap, Hosshin), the “Truth-body.” All and every one of us participate in this universal Buddha-soul; it is in fact inherent in us, although we may be quite unaware of it. Faith is nothing but a realization, a bringing to full consciousness, of the innermost identity of our own being with the Dharma-kāya.

In human life, even one single thought or one act has the power of stirring up a character or tendency destined to bring us to any of the diverse realms of being.

Thus the whole realm of existence is nothing but a stage of “mutual participation” of beings and their conditions, a grand harmony of all possible instruments glorifying in unison the fundamental oneness of existence.

In the light of this world-view, the ideal aim of Buddhist perfection consists in the full realization, on the part of every one, of the Buddha-nature, or in the participation of our life in Buddha’s purpose and work. For Buddha-nature is universally and primordially inherent even in existences of the utmost viciousness, and all of them can be elevated to Buddhahood. Indeed, mankind stands midway between Buddha, the Supreme Enlightened, and the most degraded infernal being, and, therefore, has the possibility of advancing further on the way to Buddhahood or of descending to the beasts or to the nethermost purgatories or hells. Hence the task of man consists in comprehending the truth of the all-pervading Buddha-nature and of mutual participation working throughout the realms of existence, especially the truth of the interaction and interdependence of different beings and their qualities, functions, and so on.

Thus the philosophy of Tendai establishes a synthesis, called the Middle Way, between the two extremes of common-sense realism and transcendental idealism, in repudiating either the former position that a particular being is a reality in itself and by itself, and the latter conception of reality amounting to the denial of anything but the absolute and transcendental. The Middle Way is at the same time the all-embracing One Road (Eka-yāna), because it presupposes the basic unity of Buddha and all other beings, and emphasizes the possibility, nay necessity, of raising all beings to the dignity of Buddha himself. The historical Buddha was, according to this conception, a manifestation of the universal and primordial Buddha-nature for the sake of inducing all beings to the full realization of their own real nature or metaphysical entity identical with that of Buddha himself.

It was the Chinese philosopher monk Chih-i (531-97) who formulated a system of religious philosophy on the basis of the book Hokke-kyō or Lotus; it is known as the school of Tendai (Chinese, Tientai), from the name of the mountain where he lived. The chief import of the book is to interpret the person of Buddha as a manifestation of eternal metaphysical entity, and thus to synthesize the two aspects of his being, his actual manifestation or incarnation in human life, and the ontological foundation of his real entity.

Now to confess one’s Karma and to live a life of repentance are necessary preliminaries to Buddhist training, which consists in an endeavour to overcome the iron fetters of Karma as manifested in weal and woe, in births and deaths. Belief in Karma is not a blind submission to fate, but a step towards a strenuous effort to overcome selfish motives and to emerge from the vicious narrowness of individual life into broad communion with other beings, especially with enlightened spirits.

Human life, according to the teaching of Karma, is an endless continuity of deeds and retributions extending to the infinite past and to the future far beyond the ken of any mortal being, and including the existences in all possible realms, celestial, human, bestial, infernal, and so on. Moreover, the bond of Karma is not limited to the continuity of one’s individual life, but extends to the ties of association binding fellow beings together in a group or realm of existence. The relationship of parents and children, of husband and wife, of any social, racial, or national groups, all are manifestations of Karma working to perpetuate the inherited links of deeds and dispositions.