[I] will clarify in detail [the meaning of] the dharma of the Buddha.

How can there be any dharma [reality] distinct from the Buddha? [There cannot be any.] All of the hundred realms and thousand suchnesses are the objective realm of the Buddha.²⁴³ This reality is ultimately understood only by Buddhas. It is analogous to the fact that a large box must have a correspondingly large cover.²⁴⁴ This vast and great Buddhahood and objective realm²⁴⁵ is illuminated by means of unlimited Buddha-wisdom. For [the Buddha] to reach to the own basis mind” [of this reality] is called “the dharma in accordance with his own mind.”²⁴⁶ If one is illuminated concerning the nature and characteristics of the nine [other] realms from beginning to end without omitting a thread or mustard seed, this is called “the dharma in accordance with other minds.²⁴⁷ On the basis of these two dharmas²⁴⁸ the phenomenal traces [of the Buddha] “hang down”; “sometimes to manifest his [the Buddha’s] own body, sometimes to manifest another body, sometimes to preach his own words, sometimes to preach the words of another.”²⁴⁹

[The Buddha’s] “own mind”²⁵⁰ and the “mind of others”²⁵¹ are beyond conceptual understanding. [The Buddha’s] “own body”²⁵² and the “bodies of others”²⁵³ are extremely subtle and ultimately quiescent. [Ultimately] all of them are neither tentative nor real,²⁵⁴ yet one can propose a [tentative] correspondence of the nine realms as tentative and the one [Buddha] realm as real. However, within the dharma of the Buddha there is no loss nor decrease.²⁵⁵ The dharma of all Buddhas is truly subtle!

These matters should be known [as explained above], so I will not go into a troublesome and detailed explanation. The chapter on “Expedient Means” [in the Lotus Sūtra] clarifies this matter further.

243

Another famous phrase of Chih-i which succinctly expresses his concept of the integrated nature of reality. return

244

In other words, the vastness of reality, of the objective realm, is such that only a vast and comprehensive wisdom can comprehend it. return

245

Or “vast and great realm of the Buddha.” Since the two (Buddha and objective realm) are integrated, either phrase ultimately means the same thing. return

246

In other words, for the Buddha to penetrate to the basis of reality is for him to completely understand all Buddha-wisdom, exhaustively know the underlying principle of reality, which is the Buddha-realm. return

247

This terminology is borrowed from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, T. 12, 820b2ff, where the Buddha explains that he has preached the twelvefold Sūtras at times directly on the basis of his own “mind” or understanding, at times in accord with the “mind” or understanding of his listeners, and at times a combination of these two. (See Yamamoto Ill, 868ff) Here Chih-i’s point is somewhat different. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra is speaking of different methods of teaching; Chih-i is tentatively making a distinction between the two kinds of wisdom: the wisdom which knows the Buddha realm (real wisdom ) and the wisdom which knows the other nine realms, the world of objective reality (tentative wisdom ). Of course, as Chih-i has just pointed out, the first nine realms are included in the Buddha realm and all of them together are the constituent parts of an integrated reality. return

248

That in accordance with the Buddha’s own mind and that in accordance with the mind of others (in the other nine realms); or, real and tentative wisdom. return

249

A paraphrase of a section in the chapter on “The Lifespan of the Tathāgata” in the Lotus Sūtra. Hurvitz, Lotus Sūtra, 239 translates: “O good men! The scriptural canon preached by the Thus Come One is all for the purpose of conveying living beings to deliverance. At times he speaks of his own body, at times of another’s body, at times he shows his own body, at times another’s body, at times his own affairs, at times another’s affairs. Everything he says is true , not vanity.” return

250

This tentatively corresponds to the “real.” return

251

This tentatively corresponds to the “tentative.” return

252

This tentatively corresponds to the “real.” return

253

This tentatively corresponds to the “tentative.” return

254

They ultimately correspond to the middle, which is beyond the duality of tentative and real. return

255

Nothing is “taken away” from the Buddha or the Buddha realm by conventionally “separating” the nine other realms from the realm of the Buddha. return