PERFECT AND IMMEDIATE ZHI GUAN

                                 THE INSIGHT INTO THE TWO TRUTHS

                                  天台宗

            The Tiantai zong (T'ien-t'ai model; it absorbed the Nirvana school).

• • 1. Entering emptiness from conventional existence, 從假入空 

    2. Entering conventional existence from emptiness, 從空入假  

    3. Insight of the Middle Path of supreme meaning, 中道第一義諦觀

Perfect and Immediate Zhi guan (Chih Kuan), stop and observe, 止观. The most superior Insight is called Perfect and Immediate. 

While stop and observe, 止观, is its name, if we examine closely the third description we find 中道第一義諦觀, which means: 

             The middle way: first with righteousness examine and behold.

             It is thus that we get clear idea of what "stop" really entails.

The two previous Truths must be examined not with cognitive intelligence, but with a base of Dharma Virtue. It is then that we can re-translate the character 止 with its alterntive meaning, which is "only," so that 止观 means "only watch."

If one only watches then, with correct cultivation, Natural Virtue is always present.

Then the three aspects of emptiness, conventional existence, and the mean are contemplated simultaneously and spontaneously, and immediately perceived as being integrated, non-dual and synonymous.

This "only watching" is accomplished using the traditional Vipassana approach; by correct pre preparation (organization), preparing the Contemplatoion Device (CD), and allowing the usual discernment of the rise within consciousness, the moments of continuation and the falling away, which are understood profoundly as only products of the mind without individual existence or substance.