Zhǐguān dàyì 止觀大意
The Great Purport of Cessation-and-Contemplation by 湛然 (Zhànrán / Jīngxī Zhànrán, 述)
About the work
A single-juan synoptic exposition of the Móhē zhǐguān (KR6d0130, T1911) by 湛然 Zhànrán, composed in response to a specific request from the lay scholar 李華 Lǐ Huá (a member of the Hànlín 翰林 establishment). The work is the parallel to Zhànrán’s Fǎhuá jīng dàyì (KR6d0060, on the Lotus Sūtra) — both are short synoptic texts intended for lay-scholar audiences who could not engage with the full scholastic apparatus.
Prefaces
The text in the Taishō recension carries the contextual note: “Because the Yuánwài Lǐ Huá [Lǐ Huá the Yuánwàiláng] desired to know the Great Purport of Cessation-and-Contemplation, [I] briefly report the outline.” This documents the work’s specific occasion: a request from Lǐ Huá, the celebrated mid-Táng literary figure (715–774) and lay-Buddhist patron, who corresponded with several Tiāntái masters of the period.
Abstract
The Zhǐguān dàyì is one of the most accessible of Zhànrán’s productions: a single-juan synoptic exposition of the Móhē zhǐguān’s doctrinal essentials, structured around the Tiāntái jiàomén 教門 (“doctrinal gate”) and guānmén 觀門 (“contemplation gate”) apparatus. The work belongs together with Zhànrán’s Fǎhuá jīng dàyì (KR6d0060) and his other introductory works (the Sānbù dàyì 三部大意, etc.) as the principal late-Táng Tiāntái pedagogical apparatus for lay-scholar audiences.
The composition is dated to Zhànrán’s productive period before Lǐ Huá’s death in 774, with a defensible bracket of c. 750–774.
Translations and research
See KR6d0131 for the bibliography on Zhànrán’s Móhē zhǐguān commentaries.
- Penkower, Linda L. “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1993.
Other points of interest
The work’s specific commission from 李華 Lǐ Huá — the celebrated mid-Táng literary figure who was also a friend of 韓愈 Hán Yù and a major lay Buddhist patron — documents the substantial late-Táng literati-monastic intellectual exchange around Tiāntái meditation. The Zhǐguān dàyì is one of the principal mid-Táng documents of this Tiāntái-literati institutional connection.