5. FAN ZHIYI 范志毅 OF THE TIANTAI MODEL

天台师

Tiantai shī

       Nanyue Huisi (慧思) (515-577 CE)

Fan Zhiyi (Chih-i) 范志毅 538 - 597

He was the founder of the Tiantai model and attempted to reconcile the diverse tendencies at the time, as he considered all the doctrines as aspects of the truth present in the mind of an Awakened Buddha.

His principal influence was however the Lotus Sutra and we must remember that the idea of lineage replaced the more correct truth of transmission by Inspiration, in which a student could, being ispired by one teaching and meditation, develop that without being suffocated by all the complex concepts of his master.

Zhiyi is the first major figure in the history of Chinese Buddha Dharma to elaborate a complete, critical and systematic classification of the Buddha Dharma teachings in order to explain the seemingly contradictory doctrines and made the first significant break from the Indian tradition to form an indigenous Chinese system.

Born as Chen (陳) in Huarong, Jing Prefecture (荊州華容). When he was seventeen, his parents died and parents and his hometown Jiangling fell to the Western Wei army. He became a monk at eighteen, and at 23, he received his most important influences from his first teacher, Nanyue Huisi (慧思) (515-577 CE), a meditation master who would later be listed as Zhiyi's predecessor in the Tiantai lineage.

After completing his study with Huisi, he worked in the southern capital of Jinling (金陵). In 575 he went to Tiantai mountain for intensive study and practice with a group of disciples.

One of the significant and central concepts was a belief in the universal attainability of Awakening, which engendered conflict with other Dharma models that believed that Awakening was for most only attainable after a lifetime of devotion.

The Three Truths

Three Meditations of One Mind

  一心三观

An important teaching was  "the Three Truths", derived fom Nagarjuna:

• Phenomena are empty of self-nature

• Phenomena exists provisionally from a worldly perspective

• Phenomena are both empty of existence and exist provisionally at once

The idea the idea that li, the transcendent principle, and shih, phenomenal reality, interpenetrate without obstruction; and the idea of One absolute Mind all of reality, in both its pure and defiled aspects (Alaya).

If one can meditate this concept with the whole mind, it is call Three Meditations of One mind, or Inconceivable Profound Meditation.

Four Samadhi

• 'Samadhi of Constant Sitting' (常坐三昧) or 'One Round Samadhi'  (一行三昧);

• 'Pratyutpanna-samadhi' (般舟三昧) or 'Prolonged Samadhi' or 'Samadhi of Constant Walking' (常行三昧);

•  Constant doing

• 'Samadhi of Half-Walking and Half-Sitting' (半行半坐三昧)

• 'Samadhi at Free Will' 隨自意三昧 or 'Samadhi of Non-walking and Non-sitting' (非行非坐三昧)

Zhiyi developed a practice which was distilled into the important 四種三昧 'Four Samadhi.'

These Four Samadhi were expounded in Zhiyi's  摩訶止観, Mohe Zhiguan, a "grand summary" of the Buddha Dharma Tradition that was refined from a series of lectures Zhiyi gave in 594 in the capital city of Chin-ling and was generated from his broad interest and experiences at Mount Tiantai from about 585.

Showing the close relationship with our thesis, in the title "only observing", the character 止, zhi, refers to Chan meditation, that is, the concentrated and quiescent state attained, while  観, guan, refers to contemplation and resultant wisdom attained.

We can consider this a twofold process of initial preparation by insight and a later dvelopment of contemplation.

Swanson (2002) reported that "Zhiyi held that there are two modes of 'chih-kuan': that of sitting in meditation 坐, and that of “responding to objects in accordance with conditions” 歴縁対境, which is further refined as abiding in the natural state of a calm and insightful mind under any and all activities and conditions.

Swanson further states that Zhiyi in the Mohe Zhiguan is critical of an unbalanced emphasis on “meditation alone,” portraying it as a possible “extreme” view and practice.

He presents the  一行三昧, Samadhi of One Practice, which is also known as the "samadhi of oneness" or the "calmness in which one realizes that all dharmas are the same." It is one of four Samadhi that refine, mark the passage to, and qualify the state of perfect enlightenment expounded in the Mohe Zhiguan.

The term "Samadhi of Oneness" was subsequently used and applied by Daoxin as his principle practice. Any connection with Zhiyi would certainly have been played down in the attempts by Zhanran between 746 and 773 to augment the prestige of the obscure Sengcan.

It is not clear whether this Zhanran who first participated and then led these drives was in fact a Northern Chan master or the Tiantai master Zhanran (711-782) of the same Dharma name.

When the false idea of lineage is exploded, this allows the acceptance of a connection with a natural Dharma flow from Tiantai, which was itself a new phenomenon with a base that extends to the master Nanyue Huisi (南岳南嶽) 515-577 who was his first master.

Lest this seem to be an absurd connection, we see at the time when the orthodox lineages were being established the following entry in Yongming Yanshou's 宗经录, Zongjing lu. Fascicle 27 is a record of ten Chan adepts (Chanmen dazhe):

Chan master Baozhu of Jinling

Layman Shanhui of Wizhou

Chan Master Huisi of Nanyue

Chan Master Zhiyi of Tiantai

Monk Sengqui of Sizou

Chan Master Fenggang of Tiantai

Hanshan of Tiantai

Shide of Tiantai

Monk Budai of Mingzhou

This list not only shows a valid connection between Chan and Tiantai, but clearly is a further proof for the clear interchange of Dharma ideas in which a master of one model could also serve as a master of another model.

It is interesting to note the inclusion of Hanshan and Shide, who, it appears, were not the obscure figures they are normally assumed to be.

One interesting note, perhaps making him the first "green," was that as a result of obtaining patronage he bought the fishing rights along the coastline adjacent to Mount Tiantai and obtained an imperial ban on fishing in the area that remained in place for at least two centuries.