Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s1.t2.10

v1.c7.s1.t2.10

The Tien-Tai School was also divided into five different Buddhist periods ie the period of Avatamsaka, the period of Agamas, the period of Vaipulya, the period of Prajā and the period of Dharma-pundarik/Nirvana period and declared that the Tien-Tai School lied in the highest Avatamsaka period. It was divided by the four-fold methods and four doctrines, the former meant such forms or methods as employed by Śākyamuni, including sudden enlightenment teaching, gradual teaching, secret teaching and variable teaching; the doctrines were explanations made by Śākyamuni based on the profoundness, including tripitaka teaching, shared teaching, distinctive teaching and perfect teaching. The eight teaching methods were integrated in the four periods of *Dharma-pundarik*. *Saddharma Puṇḍarīka* was the saying at the last term and was considered as the ultimate of teaching with pure perfection and exclusiveness and the best among the eight teaching methods. The Tien-Tai School thus belonged to a complete Buddhism with perfect doctrines. It was founded by Zhiyi, spread widely by its fifth patriarch Guanding and prevailed for a time but gradually perished. At the middle of Tang Dynasty, Zhanran further proposed that Buddha existed everywhere in the nature, that is, Buddha was ubiquitous in all realms, never blocked by the consciousness or by the nature. Therefore, it could be said that Buddha existed in even a single grass, a rock or a dust. All contained 3,000 worlds and defilement, purity, virtuousness and evilness could all be seen as natural virtues. Śākyamuni never got rid of evil but could avoid conducting evils and Icchantika never lost the goodness but stopped to conduct goodness. So it could be said that goodness and evilness existed in everything. The three *dharma* ie, *citta-dharma*, Buddha Dharma and Sattva Dharma, all have the 3,000 worlds and integrate with each other in spite of their differences in nature, cause and effect. That is why no difference exists in the three *dharma*. Siming Zhili (960-1028) of Shanjia Wing in Song Dynasty proposed the theory of “following other theories according to the conditions” which means that the truths proposed by other schools are not contained in the different things and are separated with the things. Therefore, it was also called the “other theory” or “but theory” or “one theory”. According to the perfect teaching, the true suchness contained different phenomena which combined into each other. All *dharma* were left alone to be what they really were, that is, all performed according to conditions and remained unchanged. To be unchanged was to follow conditions which meant to be unchanged. This was “following one theory according to the conditions”. On the contrary, the Shanwai Wing insisted on contemplation out of true thought and valued the spirit of natural thought. From the Yuan Dynasty period onwards, the theoretical aspect of the School failed to make any significant new additions and the successors approached Tien-Tai by means of deep meditation which promoted the blending of deep meditation and theories of the Tien-Tai School.