[M]undane Knowledge (Shih-chih) … belongs to the mundane world and does not concern the attainment of the Path. Chih-i explains that the mundane knowledge is filled with deviant ideas and false attachments. People mistake the provisional existence to be real, with which their minds do not act in accordance with the principle or truth, and do not have faith to enter the correct path. Chih-i defines the characteristics of the mundane knowledge in China as different from those in India. While the Indians tend to allow their fancy to run wild, the Chinese aim at practical things, such as social behaviors, living skills, knowledge of nature, cultivation of supra-mundane powers, and so forth, for the purpose of gaining fame and fortune, and satisfying desires. These things generally belong to mundane knowledge and are conceived by the minds of ignorant beings. (Vol. 2, Page 134)

The significance of knowledge lies in its relation to objects as truth. According to Chih-i, with knowledge, truth can be manifested, for knowledge points to the place where truth resides. With the manifestation of truth, knowledge is entitled to be subtle. In view of the fact that they are complementary to each other as one entity, any one of these two categories is indispensable. Chih-i asserts:

“The ultimate principle [truth] is abstruse and profound, and it cannot be manifested without knowledge. [Although] knowledge is capable of knowing the place [where truth resides], it would not be merging without objects [as truth]. Since objects [as truth] are merging and subtle, knowledge is also entitled to be merging and subtle.” (Vol. 2, Page 132-133)

In Chih-i’s discourse of Objects as truth, truth is elaborated in terms of various conceptions of truth. This means that Chih-i’s concern is not merely the issue of truth itself, but also how truth is conceived. This is because truth is objective reality, and the attainment of truth is associated with one’s subjective mind. Therefore, correctly presenting what truth is and addressing various conceptions of truth are equally vital.

The issue of truth itself is laid out by Chih-i in his elaboration of Objects as the Ten Suchnesses, as the Threefold Truth, and as the One Truth. The Ten Suchnesses describe concretely the characteristics of the Ultimate Truth. The Threefold Truth describes the three aspects that constitute the Ultimate Truth. The One Truth is synonymous with the Ultimate Truth, i.e., the One Truth is the Ultimate Truth and Ultimate Truth is the One Truth, which conveys that true reality underlies all dharmas, and can include all categories of Objects as truth. (Vol. 2, Page 131)

The last category of Objects as the One Truth concludes various categories of Objects as truth, stressing that there is only one Ultimate Truth. In Chih-i’s understanding of truth, truth itself is abstract, it does not have a fixed term, and it cannot be understood conceptually. Therefore, truth can only be presented in relation to the understandings of beings. Only with the supreme ability of understanding, can one fully conceive truth. With this assumption, Chih-i not only systematically presented various categories of Objects as truth, but also offered us a system of classifying various levels of attainment that are associated with these truths. This indicates that it is one’s ability of understanding truth that determines one’s level of attainment.

Furthermore, by classifying various levels of understanding truth into coarse or subtle, Chih-i tells us that although truth is always the same, living beings do have different faculties, and as a result, their achievements are also different. Hence, the coarseness or the subtlety does not concern truth itself but is the consequence of various abilities of beings. However, if one strives to attain Buddhahood, the understanding of truth that belongs to the Perfect Teaching is superior to others. With such an understanding, one is able to realize truth perfectly.

By opening the coarse and displaying the subtle, Chih-i goes a step further to remind us that one should not dwell on differences, for all levels of understanding of truth are valid as all beings can eventually attain Buddhahood. This is to emphasize the message of universal salvation of all living beings delivered in the Lotus Sūtra. (Vol. 2, Page 118)

From the perspective of one reality (that entails non-duality), Chih-i considers the Two Truths to still be the expedient means for the purpose of revealing the One Truth. This situation is compared with a metaphor quoted from the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra:

“What is called the two truths is in fact one truth. It is called two as expedient means. It is like a drunk person who has not yet vomited [and regained his sobriety], who sees the sun and the moon spinning around and says that there is a sun which is spinning around and a sun which is not spinning around. A sober person sees only that which is not spinning around and does not see the spinning.”

Applying this simile to the case of various teachings of the Buddha, Chih-i comments:

“Those of the Tripiṭaka [Teaching] belong to the duality of spinning, like that drunk person. All the Mahāyāna sūtras express the One [Truth] of non-spinning in the form of the two [modes of] spinning. The present Lotus Sūtra directly abandons expedient means and only expounds the unsurpassed Path. The non-spinning is the one Ultimate [Truth], and therefore, it is subtle.

According to Chih-i, the perception of reality is related to the state the person is in. A deluded and drunk state causes mistaken views to arise, from which reality is wrongly perceived. This is the state of the śrāvaka. Mahāyānists are in a sober state and can correctly perceive reality as an integrated unity. Nevertheless, truth that is verbalized is still relative due to inadequacy of language. Ultimately, truth cannot be explained and is beyond language, since any attempt to verbalize it would only result in distorting it. Hence, No Truth (Wu-ti) conveys most adequately what real truth is, which is characterized as quiescent. (Vol. 2, Page 115-116)

Chih-i’s distinction of coarseness and subtlety is for the purpose of reaching non-distinction by opening the coarse and revealing the subtle. According to Chih-i’s interpretation, opening the coarse and revealing the subtle means that in the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha made clear that although the three teachings (Tripiṭaka, Common, and Separate) are expedient means, they contain the Ultimate Truth in leading beings to reach the final teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. Therefore, in the Lotus Sūtra, these three teachings enjoy the same status as absolute subtlety like the Perfect Teaching, on the basis of the Ultimate Truth being the underlying principle of all the Four Teachings. (Vol. 2, Page 115)

This real intention of the Buddha is revealed by the means of opening the coarseness and the subtlety that is accomplished in the ultimate teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. Chih-i stresses that it is the Lotus Sūtra that brings the unification of the coarseness and the subtlety into completion. Chih-i emphasizes that not only all other teachings before the Lotus Sūtra were built up for the convenience of revealing the Ultimate Truth, but actually the first appearance of the Buddha from the incalculable past had already been determined for the revelation of the Lotus Sūtra. Why is the Lotus Sūtra so important? To Chih-i, it is because of the sudden revelation of the Ultimate Truth in the Lotus Sūtra that the Lotus Teaching enables all believers of both Śrāvakayāna and Mahāyāna to enter the terrace of the lotus blossom (a representation of subtle enlightenment) from their coarse stages (i.e., the stage at which they are unable to conceive the Ultimate Truth). With the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, all disciples, whether they used to hearing one, two, three, or four flavors of the teaching, or even no teaching, are guaranteed to attain Buddhahood. This is the meaning of opening the coarse and revealing the subtle. (Vol. 2, Page 111)

For Chih-i, the … differentiation of the coarse and the subtle is for the purpose of reaching non-distinction, since the intention of the Buddha is for universal salvation. Ultimately speaking, the coarseness and the subtlety are all merged in the Lotus Sūtra, for the Buddha made decisive and clear that all of them are dissolved in the subtlety (Chüeh-liao Jumiao). Regardless of whether they are viewed as coarse or subtle, and or neither coarse nor subtle, they all contain the ultimate intention of the Buddha in leading beings to attain Buddhahood. (Vol. 2, Page 105)

The feature of both explainable and unexplainable is related to the length of function. On the one hand, the length of function refers to the Buddha’s soteriological activity of saving beings, beginning from an incalculable past in the Origin until the more recent event of teaching the Lotus Sūtra in the Traces. On the other hand, for different capacities of beings, the Buddha expounds either the truth that can be conceptually understood, i.e., explainable, or the truth that is beyond conceptualization, i.e., unexplainable. The feature of neither explainable nor unexplainable denotes the inconceivability of the four truths, since the Ultimate Truth they contain cannot be conceptually conceived. In view of the inadequacy of language and of conceptual thoughts in conceiving the Ultimate Truth, the four truths cannot be defined by terms such as superior or vast, long or short, and sameness or difference. This is an integrated reality that everything is without difference and is subtle. (Vol. 2, Page 105)