ABSTRACT
The key issue in the teaching of Buddhism concerns truth. It is one’s realization of truth that leads one to reach enlightenment. In sixth-century China, master Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597 ce), founder of the Chinese Tiantai 天台 Buddhist school, correctly understood the importance of the issue of truth and had launched the whole discourse on truth in his work The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra (Miaofa lianhuajing xuanyi 妙法蓮華經玄義, in Chinese Tripiṭaka [Taishō edn., vol 33, No. 1716], pp. 698b–707a) (hereafter Xuanyi) (with Shen 2005). To him, truth is an object to be viewed, seeing that truth is subjective to one’s conception. The conception of truth determines one’s level of realization, from which each category of objects as truth can be divided into four levels. These four levels are arranged hierarchically relating to the Four Teachings according to Zhiyi’s system of classification, with which four levels of enlightenment are derived. Zhiyi’s painstaking discussion of objects as truth is demonstrated in his comprehensive view of the six categories of truth as a whole. These six categories are interconnected and interpenetrated, and thus can illuminate each other in unveiling the ultimate reality of all dharmas. Through his discourse of truth, Zhiyi established a practical course of attaining enlightenment in terms of what truth is, how truth can be approached, and how universal salvation can be realized.
