Confronted with the massive influx of Mahayana texts
translated into Chinese, many of which directly con-
tradicted one another in matters of both doctrine and
practice, Zhiyi was faced with the challenge of accom-
modating the claim that all these texts represented the
authoritative teaching of the Buddha. The solution he
arrived at can be described as an insight into the
interconnection between two central Mahayana doc-
trines: the concept of UPAYA(skillful means), particu-
larly as presented in the Lotus Sutra,and the concept
of S ́UNYATA(EMPTINESS), particularly as developed in
the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL. From the synthesis of these
ideas, Zhiyi developed a distinctive understanding of
the buddha-nature, rooted especially in the universal-
ist exposition given in the NIRVANASUTRA,and the
identity between delusion and enlightenment as in-
voked in the Vimalaklrtinirdes ́a and other sutras,
which entailed a reconfiguring of both upayaand
s ́unyataas they had been understood in earlier Ma-
hayana Buddhism.
The Lotus Sutraasserts that the s ́ravakas(HINAYANA
disciples), who had hitherto been regarded as having
no aspiration toward bodhisattvahood or buddha-
hood—indeed, as having explicitly repudiated these
goals—are in fact BODHISATTVAScurrently working to-
ward buddhahood, although they are unaware of the
real efficacy of their current practice. The text devel-
ops the idea that it is possible to be a bodhisattva with-
out realizing it into a claim that in fact all Buddhist
disciples are really bodhisattvas, and all who hear the
Lotusteaching will finally attain buddhahood. Indeed,
it is said in the text that no sentient being really knows
what he or she is practicing, what the ultimate karmic
efficacy of his or her deeds and cognitions is, nor what
his or her own real identity is. Only buddhas know
these things, and the real efficacy of all their deeds as
thus known by the buddhas is that these deeds allow
these beings eventually to become buddhas themselves.
The non-bodhisattva practices and teachings are all
skillful means provided by the Buddha, sometimes re-
quiring an ignorance of the final goal in order to have
efficacy toward reaching that goal. This is the teaching
of the first half of the sutra, which Zhiyi calls the “trace
gate.” Another wrinkle is given in the second half of
the sutra, which Zhiyi calls the “root gate.” Here it is
claimed that S ́akyamuni Buddha did not attain bud-
dhahood at BODHGAYA, but had actually been and
would continue to be a buddha for countless eons, in
spite of his apparent imminent decease. The implica-
tion is that while practicing the bodhisattva path, he
was in fact already a buddha (leaving ambiguous his
own degree of awareness of this fact at the time), and
that being a buddha does not mean a transcendence of
engagement in the intersubjective work of liberating
SENTIENT BEINGS, but the mastering of all possible skill-
ful means by which to accomplish this task, and a
ceaseless indefatigable endeavor to do so.
Taken together then, the two halves of the sutra sug-
gest that all beings are bodhisattvas, and all bod-
hisattvas are buddhas. And yet this is only so if the
division between them, the opacity and ignorance that
keeps them from collapsing these identities, remains
intact, just as the upayaswork only as long as they are
not known as such. This means that the intersubjec-
tive liberative relationship between buddhas and sen-
tient beings is primary and always operative, whichever
role one may seem to be playing at any time. To be is
to be intersubjective, and each being is always both lib-
erating and being liberated by all others, even while
also creating KARMA(ACTION) and DUHKHA(SUFFER-
ING). Ontology is here made soteriological: All exis-
tence is instructive and revelatory, and can be read as
a salvational device put forth by a buddha to liberate
sentient beings.
The relation between illusion and reality is thus
reconfigured as the relation between provisional and
ultimate truth in the Buddha’s teaching. Zhiyi charac-
terizes the Lotusteaching as the “opening of the pro-
visional to reveal the real” (kaiquan xianshi), allowing
one to see the provisional truths as both a means to
and an expression of the ultimate truth. Provisional
and ultimate truth are nondual, even while maintain-
ing their strict opposition. Their relation is similar to
that between the set-up and punch line of a joke; the
punch line is funny only because the set-up was not,
but once the punch line is understood, the set-up too
is seen to have always been pervaded with the quality
of humorousness, precisely by being contrastingly
nonhumorous. On the basis of this doctrine, Zhiyi es-
tablished a comprehensive system of “classification of
teachings,” which categorizes all Buddhist teachings as
expressions of ultimate truth tailored to specific cir-
cumstances and listeners.
The Madhyamaka doctrine of “two truths” can be
understood as asserting that ultimate truth is some-
how more real than conventional truth, and indeed
that while conventional truth covers both common
language (i.e., the everyday use of terms like I, you,
cause, effect,and the like) and verbal Buddhist teach-
ings, the metaphysical claims of rival schools (i.e., at-
tempts to make rigorous ultimate truths of causality,TIANTAISCHOOL