Tiantai - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Context of appearance

The dynasties Sui and Tang were for Chinese Buddhism one time of blooming during which the schools multiplied. The Chinese had from now on at their disposal a very great number of canonical texts (Sutra S), coming from various schools and times from Indian Buddhism, brought by monks of India or Central Asia; they left themselves to research " sources; authentiques" in India, like Xuanzang celebrates it. An important activity of translation started at the 4th century continued until the end of Tang. These translations were made in team made up Chinese and foreign monks, of which most famous is Kumarajiva, credit at the beginning of the 5th century; the translations in which it took part became references. More familiarized with the Indian texts, the Chinese started to interpret them with their way, incorporating concepts of their own culture, taoists for example. Will sutras apocryphal book S were written, particularly on the important subjects for the local culture, like the filial devotion. Will sutras Chinese or translated into Chinese will be borrowed later on by the Japanese, the Koreans and the Vietnameses.

It was thus necessary to explain contradictions between the various texts. A spread idea, which found its justification canonical in certain passages, was that the Bouddha had not revealed as of the beginning its true Dharma, but had adapted teaching to the public and his level of wisdom, idea which found besides a resonance in the design confucéenne of teaching. The various schools agreed on the idea that the teaching of the Hinayana was less advanced than that of the mahayana; the majority considered that the natural of Buddha existed of each one; nevertheless, they did not agree on will sutras reference and did not have the same interpretation of the nature of the phenomena of the existence. The Tiantai school, for which the Sutra of the Lotus contained the supreme revelation of the Bouddhisme, offered doctrines harmonizes some with the thought Chinese and particularly eclectic and syncretistic, ideal matrix for all the local alternatives of Buddhism; it was one of the reasons of its success.

Evolution

In China

The doctrines of Tiantai, which had been worth a fast celebrity to him, by making under Sui the dominant school, were at the end of the dynasty completed enough to hardly leave latitude of later development. Under Tang the school was already in loss of vitality, particularly after the death of Guanding where half of its disciples joined other currents. The geographical location of the mount Tiantai, far away from the capitals where lived the easy and cultivated classes which constituted its principal public, was a handicap for this current especially exegetic and intellectual. The last Master to exert a notable influence was Zhanran, less besides on the thought than on the ritual ones, resting partly on the Sūtra Avatamsaka .

The school was erased following persecutions of the 9th century during nearly one hundred years, then reappeared under the kingdom of Wuyue thanks to the support of its sovereign, who made come from the kingdom of Koryŏ the texts destroyed during the disorders of the decades précédententes. It was thus measures some under the Song to take again the fight of competition started at the 7th century against the school Chan, with which it maintained besides the relations of cousinage via Masters who were defector, fellow students and influence. It is also under Song which a Tiantai monk founded the École of the white lotus that its drifts taoists will make famous.

Tiantai was erased almost completely starting from the Yuan, without however disappearing completely because there still nowadays exist monks who claim themselves some. It remained nevertheless a major doctrinal reference with Huayan, another exegetic and speculative branch.

In Japan

to see principal article: Tendai

Saicho, still called Kogyo Daishi (傳教大師 767-822), imported it in Japan at the 9th century when under the name of Tendai it supplanted the schools of Nara which had preceded it thanks to the imperial bread-winner. Developing the Shingon parallel to, it integrated tantric elements absent from the Chinese school. At the 13th century, the monk Nichiren, an original personality with the animated life, reaffirmed the preeminence of the Sutra of the Lotus by looking further into with his way the speculations of Zhiyi and founded the school which bears its name. Other famous monks left the Tendai school to create their own movement: Honen and Shinran for the amidism and Dogen for the Sōtō Zen.

The Cheontae school is the Korean form of Tiantai.

Philosophy

The tradition of the school lends to Huiwen, its first Master Chinese, the initial revelation obtained by reading in the Traité average way of Nagarjuna: “What is produced by causes is identical to vacuity… it is the direction of the average way”. It would have transmitted this revelation to the main second, Huisi, whose Zhiyi would have received it. However, the contemporary historians regard this last as the true author of the doctrines of Tiantai, that the sixth Master, Zhiqi, would have contributed to specify.

Zhiyi gathers the lesson of different the Nikaya S and Sutra S mahayana in five times and eight types of instruction being appropriate at various levels of wisdom. It makes use of a concept largely developed in the Sutra of the lotus , that of the " expédients" means; (Upaya), methods possibly not very orthodoxe (recourse to magic etc) but adapted sometimes better to the level of the practitioner and thus more effective to guide it in the way. No Buddhist writing is thus rejected, but they do not locate all at the same level: will sutras Hinayâna are in a general way further away from the absolute truth, the best expression of this one being in the Sutra of the Lotus , final version of the teaching of the Bouddha. This opinion is based on the way in which the text brings back its wish to save all the beings: “Right from the start I solved… ”. This formula is interpreted by the Tiantai thinkers like the explicit talk of its intention to develop its revelation gradually.

Tiantai rejects the pure idealism of certain Indian schools as that of Nalanda where Xuanzang had studied, which sees in the phenomena of the world a pure production of the spirit. For the Tiantai Masters, who refuse the duality of the matter and the spirit, the world of the transitory phenomena is indeed a reality, but conditioned and impermanent, which one must include/understand the essential vacuity, the average Voie being the way which makes it possible to apprehend these two aspects simultaneously and to arrive at the supreme truth.

Tiantai thus recommends the " triple contemplation" (Yixinsanguan 一心三觀):

All the phenomena have a transitory reality (contemplation of the illusion guanjia 觀假)
the gasoline of all the phenomena is vacuity (contemplation of vacuity guankong 觀空)
All is absolutely empty and transitorily reality at the same time (contemplation of the center gate guanzhong 觀中)

It is while returning to the center gate that the Bodhisattva can show a compassion enlightened and adapted to the situation.

This triple contemplation, combined with a representation of 3000 different universes, gives the " contemplation of the 3000" (yiniansanqian 一念三千).

See too

Sūtra of the Lotus | Buddhism mahâyâna | Tendai | Saichô | Huayan

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