thing as comprehending it); and the third senses of both
correspond to each other (each is a provisional name
for an absolute reality that can be described alternately
as quiescent, illuminating, both, or neither). On the ba-
sis of this interpervasion of stopping and contemplat-
ing, Zhiyi establishes the “absolute (or perfect-sudden)
stopping and contemplating.” Zhiyi first gives an
overview of the ritual procedures for practice in the
“four samadhis”: the “constantly sitting,” “constantly
walking,” “half sitting and half walking,” and “neither
sitting nor walking” samadhis. The first three are spe-
cific ritual practices, during which Tiantai doctrinal
contemplations were to be simultaneously applied.
The fourth samadhi, known also as the “samadhi of
following one’s own attention,” while also associated
with particular texts and practices, was more broadly
applicable. This involved the contemplation of each
moment of subjective mental activity (good, evil, or
neutral) as it arose, and the application of the Tiantai
three truths doctrine to see its nature as empty, provi-
sionally posited, and the mean—that is, as the absolute
ultimate reality that pervades and includes, and is iden-
tical to, all other dharmas.
After this overview, Zhiyi describes “ten vehicles of
contemplation.” The first of these ten vehicles is the
contemplation of (1) the realm of the inconceivable. It
is here that Zhiyi gives his famous teaching of “the
three thousand quiddities inherently entailed in each
moment of experience” (yinian sanqian). All possible
determinacies are here to be seen not as “contained”
in or “produced by” a single moment of experience,
but as “identical to” each moment of experience, just
as a thing is identical to its own characteristics and
properties, or to its own process of becoming and per-
ishing. As a supplement to this practice, Zhiyi then de-
scribes nine other contemplations of the same object
in terms of (2) bodhicitta,(3) skillful pacification of the
mind, (4) universal refutation of all dharmas, (5)
recognition of obstructions and throughways, (6) ad-
justment of aspects of the way, (7) curative aids, (8)
understanding stages of progress, (9) forbearance, and
(10) freedom from attachment to spiritual attain-
ments. The text applies these ten methods first to one’s
own conditioned existence as such, and then to other
more specific objects of contemplation, such as KARMA
(ACTION), illnesses, defilements, and so on.
See also:Tiantai School; Vipassana(Sanskrit, Vipas ́yana)
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olulu: University of Hawaii, 1993.
Stevenson, Daniel. “The Four Kinds of Samadhi in Early T’ien-
t’ai Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Bud-
dhism,ed. Peter N. Gregory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1986.BROOKZIPORYNMONASTIC ARCHITECTUREThe monastery has been and remains the core of Bud-
dhist communal life in all parts of Asia. Designated re-
ligious space first appeared in India in the late centuries
B.C.E., and the importance, size, and complexity of
Buddhist monastery buildings increased as the religion
traveled eastward across Central Asia to China, Korea,
and Japan. Always constructed with local materials,
monastery architecture adapted itself to every region
of Asia, from desert sands to snow-covered mountains,
and the individual structures changed according to the
worship requirements of every branch and school of
Buddhist Asia. Yet its fundamental purpose as a set-
ting for Buddhist worship and education has remained
constant through more than two millennia.Monastic architecture in South Asia
The origins of the Buddhist monastery lie in residen-
tial architecture at the time of the historical Buddha,
Gautama Siddhartha. According to legend, a merchant
once offered the Buddha and his congregation sixty
dwellings for meditation and retreat. Thereafter it be-
came fashionable for wealthy lay devotees to offer large
complexes of buildings to accommodate the needs ofMONASTICARCHITECTURE