Tian Tai

  1. The Essentials of Buddhist Meditation

    Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on Saturday, 16 November 2013

    "The Essentials of Buddhist Meditation" is a classic Buddhist meditation instruction manual deeply rooted in the Indian Buddhist "calming-and-insight" meditation tradition. Within its tradition, it is the universally-acknowledged standard beginning-to-intermediate meditation manual, one which offers perhaps the most reliable, comprehensive, and practically-useful Buddhist meditation instruction currently available in English.

  2. The Six Dharma Gates to the Sublime

    Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on Saturday, 16 November 2013

    "The Six Gates to the Sublime" is a classic Buddhist meditation instruction manual explaining the six practices crucial to success in traditional Indian Buddhist breath-focused (anapana) meditation and calming-and-insight (samatha-vipasyana) meditation. Correctly implemented, these six "gates" lead the meditator to realization of the fourth of the four truths (cessation), of which the "sublimity" referenced in the title is one of the four canonically-described practice aspects.

  3. The Lotus Sutra

    Posted by webmaster on Friday, 9 December 2011

    Since its appearance in China in the third century, the Lotus Sutra has been regarded as one of the most illustrious scriptures in the Mahayana Buddhist canon. The object of intense veneration among generations of Buddhists in China, Korea, Japan, and other parts of East Asia, it has attracted more commentary than any other Buddhist scripture and has had a profound impact on the great works of Japanese and Chinese literature. Conceived as a drama of colossal proportions, the text takes on new meaning in Burton Watson's translation.

  4. The Buddhist I Ching

    Posted by webmaster on Thursday, 8 December 2011

    For centuries the I Ching has been used as a basic map of conscious development, containing the underlying principles of all religions, and highly prized by followers of Buddhism. Chih-hsu Ou-i uses the concepts of Tian Tai Buddhism to elucidate the I Ching —concentration and insight, calmness and wisdom, and various levels of realization. Skillfully translated by Thomas Cleary, this work presents the complete text of the I Ching plus the only Buddhist interpretation of the oracle.

  5. Chih-i (538-597)

    Posted by webmaster on Sunday, 31 July 2011

    Tradition places Chih-i as the third in the line of patriarchs in the T'ien-t'ai school, but in fact he founded the school and furnished most of its distinctive teachings himself, including (1) the T'ien-t'ai method of organizing and classifying scriptures and teachings known as p'an-chiao which gave the Lotus Sūtra the honoured place as the supreme scripture (see P'an-chiao); (2) the Three Truths that overcame the disconnection between the traditional Two Truths of Madhyamaka teaching; (3) the idea that the transcendent principle (Chinese, li) and phenomenal reality (Chinese, shih) mutuall

  6. Foundations of T'ien-t'ai Philosophy

    Posted by webmaster on Sunday, 31 July 2011
    T'ien-t'ai philosophy synthesized the vision of the Lotus Sutra and the dialectics of the Middle Path philosophy. Of the works in English on T'ien-t'ai, this one deals most thoroughly with the development of Nagarjuna's Two Truths into a Threefold Truth. Although such a threefold division is not known in India, the study well shows how this is by no means a misunderstanding. Rather, it captures well the spirit of the letter of the Law of Interdependence. The first half of the book (pp. 1-156) deals with the history of this idea. This is followed by a translation (pp.

  7. The “Round” Doctrine of Tian Tai and Its Significance for Modern Time

    Posted by webmaster on Tuesday, 26 July 2011

    From the text: "When discussing on Chinese mind, Inada K. Kenneth agrees with Fung Yu-lan’s notion that the Chinese mind is one endowed with “a continental spirit” on which the unique Chinese culture or civilization was created (K. Inada, 1997, p.7). The term "continental" depicts a huge land mass, a vastness, an illimitable nature, and the term "spirit" is modified with the same nature, a spirit that is huge, large, extensive, holistic, totalistic and a grand unity.