Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

This paper aims at proving the hsien-shih chien chu-i (現世間主義) of Chinese Buddhism through analyses of five Chinese Buddhist thoughts. At first, shi-hsiang lun of T'ien-t'ai (天台實相論) is examined. T'ien-t'ai‘s shi-hsiang lun consists in i-nien san-ch'ien shuo (一念三千說) and i-hsin san-kuan (一心三觀). I-nien san-ch'ien shuo is a teaching that a human being has infinite possibility, and i-hsin san-kuan is a teaching that k'ung (空), chia (假) and chung (中) are all one and the same. I think that this i-hsin san-kuan is an example par excellence of hsien-shih chien chu-i of Chinese Buddhism. We can see in four other Chinsese Buddhist sects doctrines similar to the i-hsin san-kuan theory of T'ien-t'ai. One of them is the doctrine of erh-ti ho-ming chung-tao (二諦合明中道) of San-lun tsung (三論宗). It consists in the concepts of ti-i fang-yen (第一方言), ti-erh fang-yen (第二方言) and ti-san fang-yen (第三方言) that respectively corresponds to k'ung, chia and chung. Hui-yüan of Ching-ying ssu (淨影寺 慧遠) also suggested a doctrine similar to T'ien-t'ai's i-hsin san-kuan in structure: k'ung, yu (有), and fei-yu fei-wu (非有非無). The doctrine of shi-hsüan yüan-ch'i of Hua-yen (華嚴十玄緣起) presents the theory of i-chi i-qie (一卽一切). Shi-hsüan yüan-ch'i consists in five parts, and two of them, i-to hsiang-jung pu-t'ung men (一多相容不同門) and chu-fa hsiang-chi tzu-tsai men (諸法相卽自在門), are especially related to our topic, for the latter corresponds to k'ung and the former to chia. Finally, Liu-tsu t'an-ching (六祖壇經) presents the doctrines of wu-chu (無住), wu-nien (無念) and wu-hsiang (無相). Wu-chu corresponds to k'ung, wu-nien to chia, and wu-hsiang to chung.