interstitial groups, the gahapatiare also significant for
comparative purposes, given analogous developments
in the eastern Mediterranean at the time of the birth
of another successful world religion, Christianity. Con-
sidering the importance of trade and traders in the
early history of Buddhism, it is at first surprising to
find that the rules of discipline kept monks from hand-
ling the ultimate leveler, money. But such rules can be
understood as rendering visible the autonomy of the
economic realm, as well as the relatively new reality of
money as the embodiment of labor.
Suspicion toward transcendence, an emphasis on
contractual arrangements, and a tendency toward
analysis and abstraction—all these characteristics can
easily be shown to have been disregarded in practice
long before the advent of the Mahayana. Thus, for
every Mongkut one can point to dharmarajas,such as
the rulers of Angkor. Similarly, the modernization of
Thailand can be contrasted to the rigidity of southeast
Asian polities whose Buddhist-based systems of legit-
imation interfered with attempts to resist colonial ag-
gression. Likewise, we can see the rationalization of
everyday life challenged, either by the materiality of
popular ritual or by the utopian emphasis on subjec-
tivity and inner freedom cultivated by the middle
classes. In conclusion, we may apply to Buddhism what
we have written about modernity in general—namely,
that the fundamental ambiguity at its core is revealed
by the tension between the two strands at work in the
cultivation of subjectivity: on the one hand the self-
centered rationality of individualism, and on the other
the ideal of internal freedom and ceaseless self-
exploration exemplified by mystics.
See also:Colonialism and Buddhism; Economics
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sity Press, 1976.GUSTAVOBENAVIDESMOHE ZHIGUANThe Mohe zhiguanis a work by ZHIYI(538–597). It was
transcribed from his lectures by his disciple Guanding
(561–632), and it is considered one of the “Three Great
Works of Tiantai” and a comprehensive manual of
Tiantai practice. The title means “The Great Calming
and Contemplation,” zhiand guanbeing the Chinese
translations of the traditional Buddhist terms s ́amatha
and vipas ́yana(Pali, vipassana). In Chinese, the first
term means literally “stopping,” the latter “contem-
plating”; for both Zhiyi distinguishes “relative” and
“absolute” types. Relative stopping and contemplating
are each interpreted, in typical Tiantai manner, as hav-
ing three aspects:- Stopping as putting an end to something.
- Stopping as dwelling in something.
- Stopping as an arbitrary name for a reality that
is ultimately neither stopping nor nonstopping. - Contemplation as comprehending something.
- Contemplation as seeing through something.
- Contemplation as an arbitrary name for a real-
ity that is ultimately neither contemplation nor
noncontemplation.
The first sense of stopping corresponds to the second
sense of contemplation (ending something as seeing
through it); the second sense of stopping corresponds
to the first sense of contemplation (dwelling in some-MOHE ZHIGUAN