Chih-i’s own thought stresses that delusion and enlightenment, the nine realms and Buddha realm, are inherent in any phenomenon; thus, those who live in evil circumstances and have no opportunity to contemplate the perfections are not excluded from the Way but can make that evil the subject of liberative contemplation. Nevertheless, he was extremely careful to clarify that the ontological nonduality of good and evil did not obviate the need to make firm conventional distinctions between them; he also inveighed against monks who interpreted the teaching of nonduality as legitimizing antinomian behavior or who taught it irresponsibly without regard for their listeners’ ability to understand. (Page 361)

The criticism that nondual original enlightenment thought undermines proper distinctions between good and evil is not something peculiar to this doctrine but has recurred throughout the history of the Mahāyāna. The Mahāyāna denial of duality aims at liberation from attachment by undercutting notions of self-existing entities to which one might cling; in repudiating the idea that there can be “self” independent of “other,” it also serves to foster responsibility and compassion. Its denial of “good” and “evil” as independent ontological entities is not a denial of morality; from the perspective of conventional truth, good and evil must be distinguished. But the Mahāyāna rhetoric of nonduality, such as “saṃsāra is nirvāṇa” and “the defilements are enlightened insight,” has at times been taken as a license to commit evil and exposed the tradition to criticism. (Page 360)

Because original enlightenment is seen as the true status of all phenomena, practice cannot be the “cause” of enlightenment. Thus its role becomes ambiguous. It must undergo redefinition, whether as predisposing one to the insight that “all dharmas are the Buddha-Dharma,” or as solidifying and deepening such insight, or as the exemplary form of the nonduality of the Buddha and the beings. But just as some version of “acquired enlightenment” cannot ultimately be dispensed with, neither can practice, as becomes clear from a close reading of texts. And from the perspective of history, medieval Tendai monks participating in hongaku discourse can be shown to have engaged in diverse forms of religious practice. (Page 359)

A close reading of texts suggests that such statements as “the defilements are none other than enlightened insight” are articulated from the standpoint of having realized nonduality, not that of having yet to realize it. Great as the attempt has been to minimize or even elude it, inevitably, something remains here of the notion of “acquired enlightenment.” We have seen how Nichirenshū scholars in the early decades of the century distinguished between Tendai original enlightenment thought as a statement of naturally inherent enlightenment (jinen hongaku), and Nichiren’s teaching as the actualizing of inherent enlightenment through practice (shikaku soku hongaku). The distinction, however, is overdrawn. Even the nondual Tendai original enlightenment stance remains, ultimately, one of shikaku soku hongaku, for the insight into original enlightenment and the transformation such insight is said to bring about are mediated by the knowledge (or faith) that “all dharmas are the Buddha-Dharma,” achieved at the stage of verbal identity. It is only from the standpoint of this nondual insight that the hongaku doctrine may be accurately characterized as “absolute affirmation.” (Page 358)