Siming Zhili (Chinese: 四明知禮, pinyin: Sìmíng Zhīlǐ, Japanese romanization: Shimei Chirei) (960–1028), also known as Siming Fazhi (四明法智), was a Chinese Buddhist scholar monk and key figure in the revival and development of the Tiantai School during the Northern Song dynasty.Getz 1994, p. 1. Revered as the seventeenth patriarch of Tiantai Buddhism, he was also posthumously titled Fazhi Dashi (法智大师), meaning "Master of Dharma Wisdom." His efforts defended and defined the orthodox philosophy of the Tiantai school, and shaped its doctrinal and ritual practices for generations. Zhili was also influential in fully integrating Pure Land Buddhism within the Tiantai school as well as for popularizing Pure Land Buddhist practice among laypersons.Getz 1994, p. 3.
Life Zhili was a native the city of Mingzhou (now Ningbo), in Zhejiang Province. This region (along with a specific mountain in it) was also called Siming, hence the moniker "Siming" Zhili.Getz 1994, p. 31. Zhili was born into the Jin 金 family and went by the style name Yueyan 約言.知禮 Zhili (960–1028). Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, 2009-05-31 Following the loss of his mother at age seven, he entered the monastic order as a novice.Getz 1994, p. 34. By fifteen, he was fully ordained as a bhiksu and began to study the Vinaya.Getz 1994, pp. 37, 39. In 979, Zhili became a disciple of Baoyun Yitong, a Korean monk who became his most influential spiritual teacher.Getz 1994, p. 42 Zhili studied Tiantai with Yitong until the master's death in 988.Getz 1994, p. 47
In 995, Zhili settled at Bao'en Yuan (保恩院, later renamed Yanqing Yuan) on Mt. Siming (四明山), a "public" (shifang zhuchi) monastery which had been reserved for the Tiantai school by imperial decree. Zhili would remain for the rest of his life. Zhili and his co-abbot Yiwen worked to restore the dilapidated temple, making it into a key center for the Song Tiantai revival.Getz 1994, pp. 49-51, 130 He spent much of his time lecturing and performing Tiantai repentance rites as well as writing.Getz 1994, p. 54. Zhili's writings are deeply concerned with establishing and defending the orthodox Tiantai philosophy (which Zhili termed "home mountain") against other interpretations influenced by the Chan and Huayan schools that had begun to make their way within Tiantai circles (which Zhili derogatorily refers to as "off the [Tiantai] mountain").Randall L. Nadeau (editor). The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, pp. 106-107. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.Getz 1994, p. 72 His writings also defend Tiantai ritual practices like the Lotus Repentance ritual against interpretations of sudden enlightenment that could undermine such practices.
In 1003, the Japanese Tendai Pure Land scholar Genshin (942–1017) sent a disciple to China with a series of questions for Zhili. Zhili responded and his letters have survived.Getz 1994, pp. 121-122 Zhili also reportedly read Genshin's Ōjōyōshū (Essentials of Birth in the Pure Land) and was deeply moved by it.Getz 1994, p. 271.
In his later years (from 1013 to 1028), Zhili's activities turned to working out Tiantai Pure Land doctrine and working to involve laypersons in Pure Land Buddhist societies. During this later period of his life he also promoted other gatherings, such as life release ceremonies and conferral of bodhisattva precepts to laypersons.
In 1017, Zhili took a vow to self-immolate after three years of practicing the Lotus Repentance in order to attain birth in the Pure Land. Zhili believed this practice generated great merit and also inspired others who witnessed this act of faith.Getz 1994, p. 176. This practice was also associated with attaining birth in the Pure Land through devotion to the Lotus Sutra (which mentions self-immolation and self-burning).Getz 1994, p. 180 Zhili engaged in a series of letters with the scholar-official and man of letters Yang Yi (974-1020), who sought to convince Zhili to abandon his suicide vow.Getz 1994, p. 181 After increasing pressure from several officials (and perhaps even imperial intervention), Zhili abandoned the plan and received further imperial recognition, including a purple robe and the honorific name Fazhi Dashi.Getz 1994, pp. 184-185 After this event, Zhili did not abandon his desire for ascetic practice however, and practiced a Guanyin repentance rite for three years. He also burnt off three of his fingers as an offering.Getz 1994, p. 187.
In his later age, Zhili also completed his commentaries on Zhiyi's five minor works, which complemented Zhanran's commentaries to Zhiyi's three main works (Fahua xuanyi, Fahua wenju and Mohe Zhiguan).Getz 1994, p. 189. He also composed a repentance rite based around the Nīlakaṇṭha Dhāraṇī called the Dabei Chan (Chinese: 大悲懺; lit. 'Great Compassion Repentance'), which has remained one of the most popular and commonly performed rite in contemporary Chinese Buddhism.
While Zhili's teachings were not accepted by all Tiantai figures of his time, Zhili and his followers had a profound impact on the history of the Tiantai school since they soon came to dominate the tradition. Zhili's writings became a key source for the school's doctrinal orthodoxy, becoming part of the orthodox Tiantai canon later in the Song dynasty. Later Tiantai figures like Yueting Mingde (1531-1588) continued to rely on Zhili.Wu, Jiang. Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China, p. 27. Oxford University Press, USA, 2011. Zhili's works, including commentaries on Zhiyi's texts such as Guanxin Erbai Wen (观心二百问) and Guanjingshu Miao Zong Chao (观经突妙宗钟), remain central to Tiantai and Tendai (Japanese Tiantai) scholarship today.
Teachings
View of Tiantai's perfect teaching Zhili’s career was defined by the controversy known as the "Home Mountain" (Shanjia, 山家) also known as the Siming faction, versus "Off Mountain" (Shanwai, 山外, also known as the Qiantang faction) debate. This debate centered on the interpretation of Tiantai doctrine. "Off Mountain" (i.e. "heterodox") proponents like Daochang Ningfen (754-828), Ciguang Wu'en (912-986), Yuanqing (源淸, ?–997), Zongyu, Qingzhao (963-1017) and Zhiyuan (976–1022), were influenced by Chan and Huayan thought.Getz 1994, pp. 71-72, 89 They emphasized doctrines like the "one pure mind" which is seen as an ultimate principle that gives rise to all phenomena. This doctrine, known as the "conditioned origination from the tathagatagarbha" (rulaizang yuanqi) or nature origination (xinqi), is derived from the Awakening of Faith and was developed in the works of Huayan masters like Chengguan and Zongmi.Getz 1994, pp. 89-98
This idea had already been incorporated to some degree in the writings of patriarch Zhanran and the interpretation of Zhanran became one key issue in the debate. Thus, some Song era Tiantai scholars defended and synthesized this Huayan idea with Tiantai teachings, seeing it as compatible with the Tiantai "perfect" or "round" (yuanjiao) view of ultimate reality. They also made it the focus of their contemplative teachings. Meanwhile, Zhili and his so called "Home Mountain" faction rejected the ultimacy of the nature origination view (xinqi), asserting that they were inferior to the original Tiantai teachings of Zhiyi which focuses on "nature inclusion" (xingju), and placing them lower in the Tiantai doctrinal hierarchy.Getz 1994, pp. 89-90Ziporyn, Brook (1994). “Anti-Chan Polemics in Post-Tang Tiantai.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 17 (1), 26–63. This heated debate went on for some years as various figures from the opposing Qiantang faction wrote various works defending their position and Zhili and his disciple Renyue responded in kind.Getz 1994, p. 91.
Zhili's criticisms were particularly focused on the Huayan-Chan emphasis on the ultimate principle (理) and one mind (一心), exemplified in the writings of Guifeng Zongmi. According to this view, all phenomena (dharmas) are modes or aspects of the ultimate reality, Dharmakāya, like waves and water. This foundationalist model bases all reality on an ultimate pure awareness, the various phenomena are secondary and their specific forms are irrelevant. However, for Zhili and his Shanjia followers, the individual and specific existence of all phenomena are not secondary or derivative. Instead, as Ziporyn explains, "it is the nature of ultimate reality, not merely to assume any shape at all, but to be precisely these ten realms, these three thousand suchnesses. Buddhahood inherently includes all the other realms, all the other finite determinations in the universe." In other words, the ultimate reality is not some formless, and indeterminate basis for the world, instead it is the entire universe itself as a holistic truth. Likewise, phenomena are not mere illusions, but the ultimate itself.
Because of this, distinctions, determinations and individual phenomena are not just unreal delusions to be discarded or ignored. They do exist as part of the substance of the ultimate Dharmakaya, which differentiates itself through delusion and comes to know itself through enlightenment. As Zhili writes:Our teaching makes clear that the substance with its three thousand dharmas follows various conditions to give rise to the Function (phenomena) with its three thousand dharmas. When it is not following these conditions, the three thousand are still there just the same. Thus the differentiated dharmas and the substance are not two, because even when delusion is eliminated, the distinctions remain.Thus, for Zhili, every single individual phenomenon in the universe (each one of the three thousand dharmas) contains every other particular dharma, and so in each speck of dust is the totality of the universe. Also, because the individual contains the whole, each individual phenomenon is also the source of all other dharmas. As Ziporyn explains, from the point of view of any individual phenomenon or particle: "without this speck of dust, the absolute (which is itself three thousandness) would not be the absolute; part of what it is to be the absolute is to include this speck of dust, which has a particular place in the system of the three thousand dharmas. As such this dharma, even if it is an experience of a being in the lowest hell, can never be eliminated."
This view also entails that each phenomenon or dharma can become any other dharma because it has the inherent potential of all other phenomena within. This is what the Vimalakirti sutra means by "the defilements are the seeds of buddhahood". It is also the core idea of Zhili's understanding of "inherent evil" (xing e), which holds that buddha-nature encompasses both good and evil. For Zhili, both Buddha and evil being are already contained within each other's essence. In other words, there cannot be a totally pure ultimate nature that is without any evil or poison and the evil inherent in the ultimate principle cannot be totally eliminated (since it is not different from Buddhahood).Getz 1994, pp. 113-114. In this view, the idea of a pure nature without inherent evil is a dualistic idea. From the ultimate perspective of the Tiantai perfect teaching however, defilement is enlightenment and vice versa, and the essence of enlightenment contains defilement and vice versa. According to Ziporyn, in this view the ultimate reality includes both the hell realms, buddhahood, all other realms, as well as the ultimate and provisional, in a single harmonious unity. Since every particular existent is an essential part of the ultimate reality, which is inherent in each individual thing, evil is inherent in buddha-nature just as everything else is. A Buddha is only a Buddha because they have realized their identity and non-duality with all realms of existence, including the hell realms. If he sought to cut himself off from other realms, he would not be a Buddha. As such, a Buddha cannot eliminate their inherent evil.