On Reality-principle Of Essentials Of Greatvehicle By Jizang

Jizang (549-623),a Sanlun School master, whose theory, as well as theTien-tai School’s, the Hua-yen School’s, Zen’s,is doubted whether itbelongs to ontology and criticized by those who believe in ontology fortheir disagreements in modern research into East Asian Buddhism. To dofurther research on these controversial issues, I believe that we should gofurther into Jizang ’s discourses so that we can figure out his originalthoughts. Thus we focus on his Essentials of Greatvehicle, which can beconsidered as an outline of his theory. This article aims to explore Jizang ’sthoughts and try to interpret his theory in details, especially hisunchanging, equal reality-principle, which consists of two components: hisideal and the practice of his ideal.Jizang’s ideal of reality-principle is something that cannot be describedin language, which is something like fully actualized view of realityexperienced by the Buddhas, as contrasted to the views based on faith andunderstanding. That is, only by practicing the "middle way" can a Buddhistexperience the unchanging, equal reality-principle. According to thiscognition, the article closely focuses on two issues, one is Whyreality-principle can not be expressed or thought, and the other is How tocarry out the madhyamapratipad method so as to realize or witness the veryreality-principle.Essentials of Greatvehicle deals with core theory on the Greatvehicle,which comprises dialogues concerning observations and practice on thereality-principle. The former is the base and method of Jizang ’s writing, aswith the later, by practising through dialogues thus leading to thereality-principle, which can be considered as Jizang ’s fundamentalpurpose and objective.As for me, on the one hand, I ’d like to do a thorough research intoJizang’s thoughts and attempt to interpret them in details in the hope thatall the effort I’ve made can eventually lay a stable foundation on for further study on Buddhism. On the other hand, I really hope that I can benefit fromJizang ’s observations and practice on the reality-principle, at the sametime, desperately eager for grasping or comprehending hismadhyamapratipad.