The Mo-ho chih-kuan [Great Calming and Contemplation] explains the “threefold” aspect of this contemplation as follows. First is “entering [the insight of] emptiness from the [viewpoint of] the conventional”; that is, one contemplates the conditioned, dependent nature of all phenomena, which are without permanence or self-essence. From the perspective of this insight, all categories, hierarchies, and boundaries are collapsed; it is a discernment of ultimate equality. The discernment of all phenomena as empty frees one from attachment to desires and intellectual constructs and is said to correspond to the insight of arhats and bodhisattvas of the Tripiṭaka and shared teachings. Next is “entering [insight into] the conventional from [the discernment of] emptiness.” Having discerned the nonsubstantial, contingent nature of things, one cognizes their provisional existence as phenomena arising through dependent origination and is thus able to act in the world in a soteriologically effective way. This discernment reestablishes categories and distinctions, but without biased attachment or false essentializing; it is said to correspond to the wisdom of bodhisattvas of the separate teaching. Last is the “contemplation of the Middle Way that is the supreme meaning.” Here one contemplates phenomena as both empty and provisionally existing, discerning both aspects simultaneously. This is said to correspond to the wisdom of the Buddha and of the perfect teaching. This progression through the three contemplations of emptiness, conventional existence, and the middle described here is called the “sequential threefold contemplation” (tz’u-ti san-kuan, shidai sangan). However, Chih-i defines as superior the contemplation in which all three truths are discerned simultaneously; this is the “perfect and immediate calming and contemplation” (yüan-tun chih-kuan, endon shikan). (Page 177-178)