The Transcendence And Synthesis Of The Rooftop Circle

Tiantai buddhism is the first founded Chinese buddhist school, and contributed the the thought of Perfect Doctrine to all Chinese buddhism. After they advocated and developed, the thought of Perfect Doctrine comed to be one of the key issues in China which is concerned by all Chinese buddhism schools.Ohter buddhism schools laid out their viewpoint of this thought with the effect of Tiantai. It is different between Tiantai buddhism and other schools that the Perfect Doctrine of Tiantai buddhism is not only supreme over the other doctrines like Tri-pitika Doctrine,Common Doctrine and Special Doctrine, but also include them all in order to established a complete and perfect doctrine system of buddhist practice and preaching, then to make sure that all human beings can obtain the benefit from this doctrine system. This paper focused on the relationship between Tiantai buddhism’s Perfect Doctrine and Threefold Contemplation in one Mind, and there are three parts as follow:First, the expansive tendency of dvi-satya(twofold truth) was reviewed in the history of Indian buddhism. On the one hand, since the sanskrit word satya has two meanings:reality and truth, these two meanings of satya were mixed up very frequently, and lead to the expansive trend of dvi-satya. On the other hand, with the Mahayana’s rising up, the disciples of Mahayana need to show that they were superior than Hinayana, the classification of teachings was comprised in the thought of dvi-satya, in order to deal with the relationship between Mahayana and Hinayana. It also make the dvi-satya expand.Second, the same situation happened in Chinese buddhism too.In China, twofold truth finally comed to threefold truth, and it is the establishment backround of threefold contemplation in one mind. By inspecting how the threefold contemplation in one mind formed,we can find that Tiantai’s theory integrated the reality, truth and classification of teachings into a whole. So there are3relations between emptiness(sunya), conventional(prajnapti) and middle (madhya)——advanced step-by-step,equality and unobstructed,supreme and integrated.Finally, the distinct thought of Tiantai buddhism like classification of teachings,elimination of delusions, the evil of buddha nature were singled out to interpret the Perfect Doctrine of Tiantai buddhism which is manifested by threefold contemplation in one mind.