T’ien T’ai’s Doctrines of The Middle Path and Reality – Part 1 of 2
T’ien T’ai-Buddhism is a school representing, most faithfully and elaborately, the Middle Path of the Buddhist doctrine. It is a school founded, in the sixth century by a Chinese monk from T’ien T’ai, named Chih-i; and its chief aim was to achieve a higher synthesis of the external realism of materialistic tendency and the acosmism [a theory that denies that the universe possesses any absolute reality] of transcendental extreme. It further elaborated the theory of reality along the line of the thought above indicated, and on the basis of the “Lotus of Truth.” This book, as has been observed above, may be called the Johannine Gospel of Buddhism. It tries to solve the problems of reality by the key given in the identification of Buddha’s enlightenment with cosmic truth.
Omitting further reference to the book, I here cite a saying which became the starting point of T’ien T’ai’s theory of reality. The saying is a verse in Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamika Sastra, or Treatise on the Middle Path. It says:
Everything arises according to causation;
We regard it as a vacuity (śūnyatā),
(But) it is phenomenal reality by virtue of appearance,
Which is at the same time the Middle Path.
Vacuity [emptiness] (śūnyatā, or suññatā in Pali) is an ancient term used in Buddhism and meant something beyond common sense or ordinary ratiocination [reasoned train of thought]. It was not a mere negation, as it is often understood; but speculations at which we must now glance clustered about it.
“Vacuity” [emptiness] was understood by the transcendentalists to mean the voidness of phenomenal things, and so the real entity was interpreted as being beyond all distinctions and causal relations. This position is most fully stated in the one hundred thousand ślokas [verses] of the Prajñā-pāramitā, a book aiming at “the annihilation of all relativities” by an almost endless repetition of neither, nor. But this annihilation was always carefully distinguished from the nihilistic view (uccheda [utterly annihilated]) that nothing exists, because the Buddhist vacuity supposes a something beyond relativities, unknowable, yet attainable in meditation. Now Nāgārjuna accepted the transcendentalist standpoint, but at the same time admitted an apparent reality (prajāñpti) in what is given (upadā). What he called the Middle Path was a synthesis of the two points of view. In spite of his adherence to the Middle Path, which was the precious inheritance of Buddhist thought, he did not give a definite statement of it, but left it to the domain of contemplative vision, attainable by only a select few. Thus, it was T’ien T’ai’s task to draw a more positive and definite conclusion from Nāgārjuna’s statement of the Middle Path, and for this purpose he translated the two extreme views into the terms of universality and particularity.
Vacuity [emptiness], according to T’ien T’ai, means nothing but the nonbeing of a particular existence apart from the universal Dharmatā [nature of a thing]. We speak of this or that thing or substance, quality or condition, and think it to be a reality, in and by itself. Nothing is more erroneous than this, because we know that nothing in this world, visible or tangible, exists without causal nexus. It is a Dharma, a thing or condition, because it is a manifestation of the Dharma, the law of causation. Vacuity does not mean the voidness of any existence in itself, but vanity of the view that sees in it a reality apart from the fundamental Dharmatā.
Thus, the thesis of vacuity [emptiness] implies the antithesis, that what is apparently existing is a reality, in the sense that it is given, given as something the meaning of which must be sought deeper and higher. In other words, an abstract universality is a vacuity, not less than a mere particularity; either is a mere abstraction apart from a datum. A particular datum may be an appearance, and yet be a product of the universal law of causality, and a manifestation of the fundamental nature of existence. A thing or a condition exists actually, and although it is subject to decay, and may disappear according to causality, it is so far a reality – a phenomenal appearance.
The synthesis amounts to affirming both vacuity [emptiness] and [provisional] appearance at the same time. The conception of vacuity has shown us that a particular existence is void, when taken in itself; but it points to the reality of the universal, as an outcome of a thoroughgoing negation of relativity. On the other hand, the idea of phenomenal appearance has demonstrated that there is a reality in phenomena which is no less essential to our conception of being than the reality attached to the universal. The world of the universal, the unity of all things in the fundamental nature, is the foundation of every particular existence, pre-existent to all particular manifestations. Yet its manifestations in concrete beings are as real as the pre-existent universals, being subject to the laws that rule all. That they are ruled by the same laws shows their unity in the basis. The particular derives its being from the universal nature of things, while the universal could not fully realize its true nature without manifesting itself in a particular. Both are real, but either by itself is imperfectly real. The Middle Path consists in uniting the two aspects of existence, universal and particular, and in seeing therein the true reality. To this argument, the consideration of Buddha’s personality gave the key, and we shall see how it is developed.
As to the relation between the particular and the universal, the case of Buddha is not only an example, but the typical representative. He was born as a human being, passed through mental struggles, and finally attained Buddhahood, and lived the fifty years of his ministry as the Truth-revealer. This is an actual life of a particular person, and no one can deny its facts, except the docetists [who believe the body of Buddha was not human], against whom the orthodox Buddhists took a united stand. Yet he was a Buddha, because he was enlightened in cosmic truths and realized the universal nature of Buddhahood, which is called Bodhi, or Enlightenment. He is Bodhi incarnate, so to speak, and Bodhi is the universal and fundamental nature of the spiritual existence, which is preexistent to appearance of particular Buddhas, and the a priori basis of their attainment. The epithet “Tathāgata” is an adequate expression of the relation between the universal Bodhi and particular Buddhas. Buddha’s personal life is a particular phenomenon, and the significance of his Buddhahood is lost, is a vacuity, when considered apart from the Truth he has attained and revealed to us. Yet the Truth (tatha) is a mere abstraction, a dead name, unless there appears a Tathāgata in concrete human life. The true reality in the person of Buddha consists in the dignity of the Tathāgata attained by a particular person, in virtue of the universal Bodhi, which is the essential condition of his communion with the Buddhas of the past and of the future.
This solution of the relation between the particular and the universal in the person of Buddha as the Tathāgata serves, at the same time, as the solution of the questions which arose concerning the acquisition or inherence of Buddhahood. Buddhahood is an acquisition, viewed from the standpoint of phenomenal appearance, as is actually shown in the career of Buddha. But it is, at the same time, inherent in his nature, and also in each of us, because without the pre-existent universal Buddhahood, a Buddha loses the foundation of his dignity. He has become a Tathāgata by treading the same way, the One Road, as all other Tathāgatas, and by thus entering the communion of Buddhahood; and this apparent acquisition is the necessary development of the Buddhahood inherent in an individual and pre-existent to individual persons. The standpoint of the Middle Path thus emphasizes equally both the a posteriori acquisition and the a priori inherence of Buddhahood, because either one of these two aspects, without the other, is an imperfect idea of the Buddha as such. In other words, Buddha is really a man, and verily the Truth. As a man he has realized the truth of the oneness of existence; he is the Truth-winner. The person in whom the Dharmatā of the universe has come to light, and who has “become Truth,” “become knowledge,” cannot but be the adequate representative of the Dharmatā, that is, the Tathatā. The Lord of Truth, the Ruler of the Realm of Truth, derives his dignity from the very source of Truth, and therefore he can work as the Truth-revealer. The actual human manifestation is a condescension on the part of the universal Truth; while the latter is first embodied and actualized in the former.
The universal Buddhahood is called Dharmakāya, or “Truth-body,” while the personal Buddha is Nirmāṇakāya, or “Condescension-body”; and these two, together with another, the Sambhogakāya, or “Bliss-body,” the spiritual manifestation of Buddhahood, make up the Buddhological Trinity. This doctrine of the Trinity is a very old one in Buddhism, and T’ien T’ai emphasizes the unity of the three, because the three aspects, considered as a unity, constitute the only right view of Buddha’s person, and of the true reality exemplified in his person.
The Trinity of Buddha’s person, however, is not limited to him alone, but in each of us is inherent the corresponding Trinity, or, as we may conveniently express it, the unity of the universal foundation and the particular manifestation. A concrete human being is a reality, but his full meaning is based on humanity in general. There is a man, and he is the man who would embody in his person the essential nature of humanity, not in the abstract, but concretely. The universal “humanity” is the “Truth-body” of every human being, and his life under particular conditions is his “Condescension-body,” while his own self-consciousness, and the influence that he means to exert upon his fellow-beings constitute his “Bliss-body.” In short, the unity of the universal man and the particular man is the reality of man.
The same remark applies to every other kind of existence, and T’ien T’ai assumes, in accordance with Buddhist tradition, ten different realms of sentient beings. The nethermost one is the hell (Naraka), or rather purgatory, where beings of extreme viciousness, deprived of the light of wisdom, are tormented by their own vices. The furious spirit (asura) is a manifestation of hatred and greed; the hungry ghost (preta) represents never satisfied greed, combined with stupidity; the beast (tiryak) is the life of stupidity and blindness; the heavenly worlds (deva) are the abodes of those beings who are intoxicated with pleasure and careless of others. These five, together with mankind (manusya), are the six stages of transmigration. Above these, are two kinds of beings who are self-satisfied in their own attainment in meditation or learning and make no further effort to realize the vitality of the universal communion, represented by the learned Sravaka and the self-contented Pratyekabuddha. The Bodhisattva is a being, who, having attained a certain height of spiritual illumination, is striving earnestly for the salvation of others. Above them all stands Buddha, in whom the universal communion and the fundamental nature of all beings are realized in idea and life, and who, by virtue of his wisdom and mercy, leads other beings to the same light. Thus, in every being in each of these classes there is manifested the relation of the universal and the particular, the concrete life of the universal Dharmatā [nature of a thing]; but it is in Buddha alone that the full light of universal truths and the all-embracing communion are realized.