First we should attend to the development of absolutism, centered on the understanding of “wonderful” in “Wonderful Dharma.” Both Daosheng and Fayun had already given “absolute” as the meaning of “wonderful,” but Zhiyi was even more thorough. In The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra he says, “Calling the sutra ‘wonderful’ means that it is ‘supreme.’ Supreme is another name for wonderful.” That is, the wonderful Dharma is the supreme and absolute truth. However, Zhiyi also made the point that there are two kinds of absoluteness: relative and absolute, and thus relatively and absolutely wonderful. Thus, when he says, “If we explicate wonderful… first in a relative way and then in an absolute way . . .” it indicates that he sees true absoluteness in a kind of absolutely wonderful.

For example, we can understand human beings to be finite and relative in contrast with God, who is infinite and absolute. But God cannot be truly absolute, as such a God is understood within the relativistic context of the dichotomy of absolute and relative—that is, his is a relative absoluteness. True absoluteness is seen where the contrast between humans and God is taken one step further. In terms of ordinary people and the Buddha, the truly absolute Buddha is such that one realizes the nonduality of extraordinary human and extraordinary Buddha and of ordinary human and ordinary Buddha. This is called “the absolutely wonderful.” It is absolute absoluteness.