February 27, 2007
Tiantai, Maka Shikan, & Ichinen Sanzen
Ki to Revitalization
On the Three-Fold Training
Wisdom-Insight Cultivation
A Glance at Tiantai
There are presently no complete translations of the "Great Samatha-Vipassana", aka "Maka Shikan". There are some partial translations. I am going to be entering links to information about these and other good T'ien T'ai material. Many thanks to Peter Johnson, Brian Holly, P Jones, Terry Ruby, & Jim Celer for resources and help compiling this information over the past four years.
The Chinese T'ien T'ai School, of which Maka Shikan is a central work, does not really exist per se, though there is still the Temple, located in the Tiantai Mountains of China. However, T'ient T'ai has exerted a considerable influence on several extant Japanese Schools -- notably the Tendai Shu at Mt. Hiei Enryakuji and the Jimon Tendai Shu at Miidera Onjoji.
Also Daruma Zen, Rinzai Zen, Jodo Shu, Soto Zen, Jodo Shinshu, and Nichiren Buddhism all began as Kamakura Era reform movements within Tendai. I would add that Shingon Shu at Mt. Koya evolved side by side with Tendai, to the extent that Tendai-Shingon was pretty much one Hieian School, in contrast to the older Nara Buddhism.
The Maka Shikan itself is a sort of Meditation Manual on Ichinen Sanzen, the principle of Mindfulness of Three Thousand Realms in a Single Moment. It was a series of sermons delivered by Chih-I, aka Grand Master Tendai {T'ien T'ai/Tendai Daishi/Mahacharya}. These were recorded by a disciple. He, unfortunately, did not complete the task, so there never will be a full translation.
Ichi is one, Nen is translation of Sati-Smrti, or mindfulness, and Sanzen is 3000. Samatha Bhavana(s) {Shi} is/are methods of stopping, ceasing, or calming the brain {manas} & ego mind {mano}, to enter deep concentration {samadhi/dhyana } and cultivate various mindfulnesses. Vipassana Kan} means direct insight, observation, contemplation, seeing, etc. Shikan could be rendered-- "stop and see for yourself." In this case, what one stops are various mental afflictions and what one sees is/are the Ten Dwellings/kinds of Dwellers {Dhatu/Loka, Kai}, the Mutual Possesion thereof, the Ten Suchnesses or 'Thats' {Tatha, Nyoze} of causation, and the Three Stages or Screens {San Seken} of life activity.
The "Dharma Essentials for Cultivating Stopping and Contemplation and Sitting in Dhyana" {Shoshi Shikan Zazen Homon?} is another, similar Meditation Manual; not on Ichinen Sanzen.
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Maka Shikan Links:
Paul L. Swanson
Mo-ho chih-kuan now available on CD-ROM: link to Kosei Publishing for details and to order. Download Sample files
Paul Swanson's tranlation presently goes through chapter 4 (the 25 ways and means) and so is the most complete to date.
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Peter Johnson & T'ient T'ai Net:
The Great Calm-Observation*Mo-Ho Chih Kuan *Maka Shi Kan*Maha Samatha Vipasyana
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Neal Donner and Daniel B. Stevenson
THE THREE KINDS OF CALMING AND CONTEMPLATION
From Kuan-ting's Introduction to Chih-i's Mo-ho chih-chih
The Great Calming and Contemplation: A Study and Annotated Translation of the First Chapter of Chih-I's Mo-Ho Chih-Kuan (Classics in East Asian Budd) (Hardcover)
Selections from Chi-i's Great Calming and Contemplation
These excerpts from a paper by Professor Daniel B. Stevenson are presented as part of the education program of the Ch'an Meditation Center, Institute of Chung-Hwa Buddhist Culture.
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Thomas Cleary
Stopping and Seeing: A Comprehensive Course in Buddhist Meditation (First Three Chapters)
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Small Calming-and-Contemplation
{this is a different work; it is a much shorter meditation manual, not on Ichinen Sanzen, but with a similar outline to the Maka Shikan.}
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Dharmamitra: The Dharma Essentials for Cultivating Stopping and Contemplation and Sitting in Dhyana (Syou-syi Jr-gwan Dzwo-chan Fa-yao) Link By the Swei Dynasty Shrama.na(3) Chih-i(4) of T'ien-t'ai Mountain's Dhyana Cultivation Monastery. Translation by Dharmamitra (5) Transliterations: Yale; modified ASCII. (6)
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Kalavinka Dharma Treasury The Essentials of Buddhist Meditation Dharma Essentials for Cultivating Calming-and-Contemplation and Sitting in Dhyana xiu-xi zhi-guan zo-chan fa-yao (Taisho n. 1915) By Dhyana Meditation Master Sramana Zhi-yi from Tian-tai Mountain's Dhyana Cultivation Monastery(538-597 CE)
The full-version integrated-file Adobe PDF Ebook Recommended Donation: ($5) - Note: Full-Version eBooks Require a Password: "kalavinka" (lower case) Scroll Down
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About the Translators
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Paul Swanson
*Permanent Fellow and Director, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture *Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Nanzan University. His areas of specialization are Japanese Religions (Shugendo) and Buddhist Studies (T'ien-t'ai/Tendai Buddhism). Publications include: *Foundations of T'ien-t'ai Philosophy, a study of the threefold truth as the basic structure of T'ien-t'ai Buddhist philosophy, including an annotated translation of part of the Fa-hua hsuan-i. *Religion and Society in Modern Japan, a collection of essays intended for use as a textbook for classes on Japanese religions. *'Pruning the Bodhi Tree', a collection of essays on "Critical Buddhism" *If you teach me Japanese, I'll teach you English, a guide to exchanging language. His current projects include: *translating the Mo-ho chih-kuan into English *editing a series of books on Asian religion. Download a list of published writings in PDF format.
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Peter Johnson The Buddhism of T'ien T'ai This site is dedicated to sharing the teachings of Buddhism as taught by Chih-I, the Great Teacher of T'ien T'ai (538-597 CE) There is no T'ien T'ai School in the world today as such. However, most forms of Buddhism found today in China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan can trace their roots to the Buddhism of T'ien T'ai.
Yahoo! Group tientai · T'ien T'ai & The Lotus SutraThis Group is a forum for advancing an understanding of the T'ien T'ai School of Buddhism. The Great Master of T'ien T'ai, Chih-I (538-597 CE), was the definitive teacher of Chinese Buddhism. Most Far East Schools of Buddhism owe a great deal to the work of Chih-I and his followers. In China this includes Ch'an, Pure Land, Hua-Yen and the later Esoteric Schools. In Japan this includes Tendai, Shingon, Jodo, Zen, and especially Nichiren. The principles of T'ien T'ai apply to all these schools and will greatly benefit the efficacy of any of these practices. There is a website at http://www.tientai.net that is produced by this group. We give updates here on new postings. Please ask any questions you have and we will try to respond promptly to any inquiries.
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Neal Donner is a writer who has published a variety of books and articles, mostly on East Asian Studies and music, and is an active member of the Libertarian Party of California.
Dr. Daniel B. Stevenson University of Kansas vAssociate Professor Religious Studies
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Thomas Cleary holds a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. He is the translator of more than fifty volumes of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Islamic texts from Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Pali, and Arabic.
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Kalavinka Dharma Salons
Kalavinka Dharma Treasury is primarily a growing collection of Bhikshu Dharmamitra's original translations of traditional Buddhist stories, verses, analogies, and teachings not otherwise available in English. Hopefully students of Dharma at every level of sophistication will find these classic-tradition materials authored by great Dharma eminences worthy of their time and interest.
Kalavinka Dharma Treasury
Kalavinka Dharma Salons are presided over by Bhikshu Dharmamitra, a Seattle-based, fully-ordained, Chinese-tradition, translator monk, who is one of the original American disciples of the late Ch'an Patriarch, Venerable Master Hsuan Hua. Dharmamitra has over 20 years in robes (1969-1975; 1991 to present), possesses a solid background in monastic and academic study of all Buddhist traditions, and advocates ecumenical respect for all classic Theravada and Mahayana practices. (Enjoy Dharmamitra's free Dharma translations and preview his upcoming offerings at the Kalavinka.org.)
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more coming
Posted by rbeck at September 23, 2005 10:59 AM
Hi Charles,
I agree that the three truths are very subtle and hard to grasp and seemingly beyond words. In fact - the practical point of them is to cut through our habit of grasping.
But for years I was baffled by the obfuscations of Zen which did try to make emptiness out to be something like a mystical reality that only an elderly Asian with a fancy title could understand (I am poking at D.T. Suzuki here). But after reading the Pali Canon and some more sober analysis of the teaching of emptiness by people like David Kalupahana and Jay Garfield, and Thich Nhat Hanh, and even the Dalai Lama (who is pretty straightforward as long as he doesn't get into tantra) I started to see that it was not completely inexpressible nor metaphysical - but it was something that you have to think through carefully and then for it to make a real difference you have to try to feel it in your gut so to speak.
For too long I approached these things as though the right explanation would allow life to fall into place. And so I only had an objective knowledge of things like dependent origination. I didn't understand the existential impact these teachings are supposed to have. That is why in one of the sutras Ananda declares that dependent origination seems clear to him, but the Buddha quickly and sternly admonishes him and tells him that it is too subtle to understand so easily.
Right now, I think the point of dependent origination is to make us realize that our lives are causal and conditioned and that we are not going to ever be happy if we keep trying to hold on to our "selves" which of course means trying to discern a fixed stable "self" in the first place. The Buddha was trying to get people to see how futile and frustrating this is because there is no such fixed stable isolatable self. To help them realize this he used a process of analysis - the five aggregates or the twelve-fold chain of dependent origination. The intent of the analysis was to get people to really examine experience and to see that there is no solid basis in it.
Unfortunately, the analysis was taken to extreme lengths and early Buddhists got infatuated with the elements of the analysis which are called dharmas. They were atomizing the world conceptually, and trying to find the ultimate building blocks of reality, or at least of phenomenal experience. Instead of using the analysis to let go and become free of craving, they were becoming infatuated with the analysis itself.
To counteract this tendency to cling even to impersonal elements and analysis, the Mahayana movement started using the rhetoric of emptiness as a way of pointing out that even the terms used in the analysis were just conceptions - ideas to help us let go of conceptions. Emptiness was not supposed to be a new reality to believe in, but was rather an anti-concept aimed at the conceptualizations of the Abhidharma phenomonologists. It's purpose was not to get people to "believe in emptiness" but to stop their clinging to mental constructs as though they were some ultimate reality. The true ultimate reality can only be experienced through non-clinging.
So the practical goal of dependent origination rhetoric, or analysis of the five aggregates, or even emptiness is not to set up some kind of mystical reality beyond words, but rather to help people let go of the craving for an ultimate solid basis. What is directly known to us when this letting go happens is apparently something that words can not convey but can only indicate, not because it is too wild or mystical but because it is simply freedom from clinging and not just a conception of it - and this freedom makes itself known in and through the conventional reality that we can talk about.
If I can relate a teaching story about this - an enlightened lay-Buddhist named Hui Neng had inherited the robe and bowl of the Buddha from his teacher and was being chased by a jealous monk named Ming. Ming came to realize that the robe and bowl were not important and so asked Hui Neng for instruction. Hui Neng asked him this:
"Not thinking of right, not thinking of wrong, at this very moment what is your original face?"
In other words, Hui Neng was inviting Ming to drop all his concepts and classificatons and ideas and open his mind to that which is before we impose our ideas and preconceptions and projections.
Ming heard this and had a sudden awakening. He asked Hui Neng, "Besides this secret teaching and meaning, is there anything even deeper?"
Hui Neng replied, "There is nothing secret about this. When you look at your own true face (nature), whatever you think is secret will be found right there."
Ming said, "I studied for years but could not realize my own true face, but now hearing your teaching I know what it is like to drink water and know for oneself if it is cold or warm."
I think the teaching of emptiness is like Hui Neng's instruction. It is not a metaphysical proposition, but more like a challenge to us to empty out all our categories and classifications which are based on taking a freeze frame snap shot of reality and imposing boundaries on the flow of it. Emptiness is asking us to drop all this and just see what things are, what our face or nature is really like without all of that. And then we will directly know the vastness and openness of reality, or our own true face, for ourselves.
So that is what I currently am relating the teaching of emptiness too - and of course I will have to empty that out as a provisional construct as well if I am to see what is right here.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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Posted by: Ryuei at September 23, 2005 03:04 PMRobin:
"Until quite recently, I held tightly to the notion that Ketai {rupa, form, substantiality} referred to material or physical existence, and Kutai referred to mentality and ideas; or a sort of potential or latency. It was natural, then, to view Chutai as an Essence, Abiding Principle, or Spiritual Constancy."
To my way of thinking, the approach mentioned here is a reasonable beginning to understandinh santai.
Even though Shakyamuni is alleged to have spoken those words in the Nirvana Sutra, and Nagarjuna expounded more negations, then Ten'ta'i compared and then formulated more on the Three Truths, they are virtually incomprehensible. These definitions, through negation attempt to describe an ultimate reality that is beyond words, and I dare say, beyond ordinary conception. I ask, then, what good are they to ordinary beleivers?
The Three Truths can perhaps be understood, or rather, experienced during a psychedelic experience, a near-death experience, and deep samadhi.
Each of the three truths, which are not really three truths are but one singular truth that is illustrated by the metaphor of Indra's Net. What is the solution to this riddle? Is it "life" as Toda realized when contemplating "what is Buddha?" Or is it "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo?" Or could it be an unspoken, unknowable reality behind and beyond dependent origination?
To my way of thinking, this line of reasoning is akin to meditational masturbation of the most ambiguous kind. If common people are unable to comprehend the truth of reality, which is one truth, not three, or rather three truths embodied in one, then people will be unable to understand the truth.
I have personally experienced the ultimate reality though psychedlics, near death experiences, and samadhi, and I cannot explain it either. I would love for people to know what I have experienced, but I do not wish them to have to be launched into a different dimension or come face to face with the peaceful and wrathful dieties.
Perhaps your original words quoted above are a good place to start. Fairy tales aren't real, but we teach them to our children anyway, then, when they are older and their minds are more sophisticated, they can see that there was a moral lesson, but the stories themselves are not the real truth. This is my view of how such an incomprehensibe idea as the Three Truths should be taught because in the end, words will fall short and those truths can only be experienced.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at September 23, 2005 02:29 PM