Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s1.t2.7

v1.c7.s1.t2.7

The Tien-Tai School stressed that thoughts and true suchness were the same because that all things were products of the moment of thought, existed in the “Ten Realms”, of which were composed by the six mortals like gods, human beings, *asuras*, hell denizens, hungry ghosts and animals and the four immortals like *śrāvakas*, *pratyeka-buddhas*, *bodhisattvas* and *buddhas*. The six mortals could ascend to the level of the Buddha and the Buddha could also appear in the six mortals. The “Ten Realms” were composed by themselves mutually and all constituted the “Hundred Realms”. What the “Ten Realms” relied on were form, sensation, conception, conduct and consciousness which further constituted the “secular world” while rivers, mountains and lands constituted the “non-sentient world”. All the three worlds existed in the “Ten Realms”, thus totally having 30 varieties of worlds. There were 3,000 varieties of worlds in the “Hundred Realms” that’s “one mind creates 3,000 worlds”. Meanwhile, this “one mind” is neither outside the three thousand worlds nor in the front of them but contains them.