As the ultimate purpose of Tiantai Zhiyi’s The Great Calming and Contemplation is mastery of the cosmic reality of three thousand worlds in one occasion of experience, in it he develops various theories of practice and gives instructions about the various kinds of human conduct that go with these theories.

The term “calming contemplation” (zhiguan) is based on a compound of the Sanskrit śamatha (meditative calm) and vipaśana (contemplation). It indicates being rooted in the cosmic reality of eternity and infinity, not being upset by the changes and ups and downs of life, broadly observing the world from the perspective of such eternity and infinity, and having unattached wisdom. It is understood to be both meditation and wisdom, as the two terms together express such things as tranquility and illumination or clarity and serenity. Appropriate judgments and actions will follow from such a state.

The term mohe is a phonetic translation of mahā, meaning “great.” The worldview and life view of The Great Calming and Contemplation is on an extremely large scale. It teaches a theory of practice for all kinds of situations, so it is appropriate that it is modified by the term “great.” We encounter many kinds of situations and obstacles in the journey through life. The Great Calming and Contemplation anticipates such situations, teaches ways of dealing with them one by one, and devises means of helping. It deals with problems of love and passion and of sin and evil, indicates what is appropriate for food and clothing, and teaches what to do about disease. We might say that it is a book of counseling that deals with all the kinds of distress and suffering experienced in life.

Returning from the absolutely wonderful of “opening the relative and revealing the wonderful” to the world of conventional reality and relative existence brings this world to life by making the absolutely wonderful alive in this world. In terms of emptiness, it is to go from the conventional duality of A and B into their nondual emptiness. Yet one does not stagnate in nonduality or emptiness but returns to the duality of conventional existence, bringing emptiness into one’s life in order to have a true realization of nonduality and emptiness. This is why Zhanran, the sixth patriarch of Tiantai, maintained that “nonduality is dual, and duality is nondual.” Small Vehicle Buddhists stagnated in nonduality and emptiness, forgetting to reenter the actual world and make such truth alive there. As a consequence of this they fell into deep nihilism.

We should pay careful attention to realizing that seeing the divine in the human or entering the actual world and bringing it to life is neither to affirm humanity, just as it is, as divine, nor to affirm reality, just as it is, as absolute. It is an undeniable fact that humanity is not divine, and that the actual world is finite and relative. Based on this, we have to posit the divine over against humanity, and we have to posit the absolute over against the actual. Thus, we must assert the relatively wonderful. In other words, the “absolutely wonderful” of “opening the relative and revealing the wonderful” does not mean to ignore such facts and affirm humanity, as it is, or to affirm the actual as absolute. In this sense, the “relatively wonderful” of “breaking the relative and revealing the wonderful” is included in “opening the relative and revealing the wonderful.” Moreover, the “supreme truth of the middle way” is posited as the synthesis of “entering emptiness from conventional existence” and “entering conventional existence from emptiness.” Finally, the “threefold contemplation” is taught as a conclusion–the perfect and immediate calming and contemplation of the identity of emptiness, conventional existence, and the middle way.

Thus did Tiantai Zhiyi’s view of absoluteness reach its culmination. We can say that the Lotus Sutra’s teaching of the unifying truth (the Wonderful Dharma of One Vehicle) gained theoretical coherence here. We can conclude that actuality is a plural, finite, and relative world. This is actuality as factual. Zhiyi insists on always acknowledging its factuality as a fact, seeing the unifying truth in it, and thereby gaining a glimpse of an absolute state. If we put this in the context of the eternal life of the Buddha revealed in chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, this actual life is transient—human beings live toward death. Based on this, one can realize the Everlasting Buddha, i.e., eternal life. It is in this way that one discovers the true or original Buddha.

The most distinctive of [Tiantai Zhiyi’s views] is the theory of the “threefold truth” of emptiness, conventional existence, and the middle way. The theory of “threefold contemplation” is related to these three: “Entering emptiness from conventional existence; entering conventional existence from emptiness. This is the supreme meaning of the middle way.” He concludes the three with the integration of calming and contemplation—that is, the idea of the three contemplations in a single instant, in which emptiness, conventional existence, and the middle way are the same, identical, and simultaneous. This theory of the threefold contemplation is derived from verse 18 of the twenty-fourth chapter of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārika:

Dependent origination we declare to be emptiness. It [emptiness] is a dependent concept; just that is the middle path.

This theory of the threefold contemplation is an application of what had been taught in the Sutra of the Main Business of the Bodhisattva’s Jeweled Necklace, a Chinese sutra believed to be from the fifth or sixth century.

Emptiness involves the negation of fixed contrapositions, such as human versus divine, ordinary people versus Buddha, evil versus good, or A versus B generally. Wherever one transcends such dichotomizing, one finds the ultimate reality of existence and of the truth—the Dharma—that supports existence. Tiantai Zhiyi’s view of absoluteness began from this idea. The truly absolute God, Buddha, or Good is found where such dichotomies as those involving human beings, ordinary people, or evil are broken through or transcended. This he calls “the absolutely wonderful.”

Tiantai Zhiyi maintains that the reason the Wonderful Dharma is wonderful is its true absoluteness—i.e., its absolute absoluteness—which is provisionally presupposed to be in contrast with the relative as a way of elevating wonder to a higher position. But the proper meaning of wonderful is to be found in the inconceivable transcendence of dualistic thought and judgments that distinguish between absolute and relative. “The wonderful is derived from the inconceivable. That it is so named is not due to the finite and relative.” Zhiyi defines it as the “nonabsolute and nonrelative” or as the “extinguishing of both relative and absolute,” because it goes beyond both absolute and relative. Thus, we can say that Tiantai Zhiyi’s view of absoluteness has its origin in emptiness, a fundamental Buddhist view of truth, from which he developed his view of absoluteness. In fact, he sometimes refers to the idea of emptiness and works out logical developments based on it.

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.

There are a great many statements and writings by Tiantai Zhiyi. The most distinctive having to do with the Lotus Sutra are Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, written in 587 when he was fifty. The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, written in 593, and the ten-fascicle The Great Calming and Contemplation, written in 594. Together these books are known as “the three great works on the Lotus Sutra” or “the three great works of Tiantai.” But they were actually all dictated by Zhiyi and recorded by his disciple Guanding (561-632), and they include many of Guading’s revisions.

Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra is a commentary on the Lotus Sutra, with a kind of theory of interpretation. The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra should be regarded as doctrine and doctrinal theory based on the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. The Great Calming and Contemplation, as a system of practice based largely on the Lotus Sutra, can be regarded as the Lotus Sutra’s theory of practice. These three treatises of Tiantai gave the Lotus Sutra a highly sophisticated and systematic structure of thought and philosophy.

Tiantai Zhiyi established his own unique interpretation, which made the Lotus Sutra supreme as “the teaching that unifies all that is good” and “the comprehensive unifying teaching.” In this we can see his intention to use the Lotus Sutra to create a unifying Buddhist summa and to bring the disputes over interpretation to an end. He composed the work during the unification of the nation under the Sui dynasty (589-618). The establishment of a unified Buddhism indicated that there existed a comprehensive and unifying Buddhist view of truth, the world, and human life. Thus was born Tiantai Zhiyi’s system of thought, comprehensive and great in both form and content.

Around the beginning of the fifth century, Kumārajīva, who was born near the western boundary of China, became a centrally important figure in Chinese Buddhism. His translation and introduction of many Buddhist sutras and commentaries marked a great turning point. It would be no exaggeration to say that he contributed to a revolution in thought in the Chinese Buddhist world. There were two main points involved in this change.

The first has to do with the correction of a misunderstanding of the fundamental Buddhist idea of truth—emptiness or sunyata—that had existed up to that time. When Buddhist sutras and commentaries were still not well known in China, the idea of emptiness was understood through the medium of ideas that already existed in China, especially the idea of nothing drawn from the works of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. For example, in chapter forty of the Lao-tzu we find: “All things emerged from being, and being emerged from nothing.” Early Chinese Buddhists used the “nothing” found here to interpret the Buddhist idea of emptiness. This way of understanding Buddhism according to prior Chinese thought was later criticized for being too dependent on native terminology and structures of thought.

Even before Kumārajīva’s time Sinicized Buddhism had come under criticism. But he translated and introduced many sutras and commentaries to China, especially those that centered on explanations of emptiness, thereby making more evident the prior misunderstanding. There suddenly arose movements to correct such misunderstandings and to bring Buddhist thought into conformity with what Buddhism actually was. Sengzhao (384-414) who was first among Kumārajīva’s disciples in understanding emptiness, was the leading figure in this movement. His writings were later edited as The Treatise of Zhao. By reading this book we can understand what Sinicized Buddhism was, how Sengzhao criticized it, and how with that act of criticism, he tried to clarify the true meaning of emptiness.

The second point is that once the various sutras and commentaries had been translated and introduced, there arose a demand that they be arranged and systemized—that is, that they be doctrinally interpreted. Historically speaking, the Buddhist sutras and commentaries were developed in India. If we trace them back we can sometimes come to understand their contextual relationships and historical order. But such procedures were not known in China, and those sutras that were first discovered were introduced and studied in a disorderly way. The need for doctrinal interpretation was born out of this disorder. Such interpretation involved appraising and ordering the sutras and commentaries according to the views of various Buddhist scholars.

This kind of interpretation flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries, during the period of the Northern and Southern dynasties.

In China, the Lotus Sutra was characterized as the teaching that unifies all good, meaning that all good ideas are brought together and unified in the Lotus Sutra. Inheriting this tradition, Tiantai Zhiyi created a single great philosophy with the Lotus Sutra as its nucleus. It is no exaggeration to say that Zhiyi achieved a unification and systematization of Buddhist thought for the first time. He made use of various sutras and treatises by taking as his central idea that the Lotus Sutra itself is a synthesis of broad and profound thought. He called the inclusiveness of the sutra “opening and integrating,” and made it the key concept in his systematization of a philosophy of synthesis.

Some contemporary Buddhist scholars view the Lotus Sutra as exclusive, contentious, and sometimes even combative. This can be regarded as another of the criticisms of the Lotus Sutra. Evidence for it being exclusive is found, for example, in the incident of the “departure of the five thousand” in the second chapter, in which five thousand people who did not understand the Buddha’s teaching got up from their seats and left, and the Buddha did not stop them but called them the dregs of the assembly. Such scholars regard all of the Mahayana sutras as negative toward the Small Vehicle to some extent, but none as extremely so as the Lotus Sutra.

They also suspect that the extreme practices of martyrdom and self-sacrifice found in chapter 13 are examples of something created by a distinct social group that was exclusive, closed, and estranged from the general society. From this they try to prove the exclusivity of the Lotus Sutra. And they relate to this what they see as the exclusivity and contentiousness of Nichiren or his followers.

There are additional criticisms, but we have discussed the main ones. The interesting thing is that there were also evaluations completely to the contrary. That is, there were those who praised the Lotus Sutra for establishing the supreme and absolute unifying truth (the Wonderful Dharma of One Vehicle), for elucidating the ultimate reality of this universe (the reality of all things), and for integrating various ideas. Just as the Lotus Sutra refers to itself as “great impartial wisdom,” followers of the Small Vehicle, who had been detested because they were never to become buddhas, are acknowledged by the Lotus Sutra as future buddhas under the unifying and integrating truth of the impartial one vehicle. In this respect the Lotus Sutra was seen as being the opposite of exclusive, namely inclusive and abundantly tolerant.