Sānguān yì 三觀義
The Meaning of the Threefold Contemplation by 智顗 (Zhìyǐ / Tiāntái dàshī, 撰)
About the work
A two-juan (上 / 下) Tiāntái doctrinal-meditative treatise by Zhìyǐ 智顗 on the threefold contemplation (sānguān 三觀) — the foundational Tiāntái meditative apparatus comprising contemplation of the empty (kōng 空), the provisional (jiǎ 假), and the middle (zhōng 中). The doctrine of the sānguān is central to the Tiāntái scholastic tradition and provides the meditative-doctrinal apparatus for the yīxīn sānguān 一心三觀 (“threefold contemplation in a single mind”) that became the school’s most distinctive meditative practice.
Abstract
Zhìyǐ’s Sānguān yì belongs together with the Móhē zhǐguān (KR6d0130) as the foundational textual authority for the Tiāntái threefold-contemplation tradition. The composition is bracketed within Zhìyǐ’s productive period c. 575–597.
Translations and research
- Donner, Neal, and Stevenson, Daniel B. The Great Calming and Contemplation. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1993.
- Swanson, Paul L. Foundations of T’ien-T’ai Philosophy: The Flowering of the Two Truths Theory in Chinese Buddhism. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1989.
- Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendaigaku — kompon shisō to sono tenkai. Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1968.