A Study On "One Mind" In The Methods Of Mahayana's Chiguan

The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan is a special work in the history of Chinese Buddhism.Its author and specific birth time are both in the fog.The completeness of its theoretical system and the clarity of its exposition are one of the best works in the vast number of Chinese Buddhist works.For the former,because there are no new historical materials have been found,so this paper does not discuss this part,but only puts the perspective on the cornerstone of the theoretical system "one mind".Firstly,this paper makes a systematic analysis of the thought of "one mind" in The Methods of Mahayana:s Chi-guan.The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan mainly explains "one mind" with the structure of "essence-use-phenomena".The essence of "one mind" can not be explained in words,but in expedient means we can say that one mind is naturally pure,intrinsic enlightenment and owns two opposite potencies:impurity and purity.The Methods of Mahayana s Chi-guan considers that the essence of "one mind" is the only real thing in the whole world,and bases on it,The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan points out that the essence of "one mind" supports all phenomena.The use of "one mind" refers to the two potencies:impurity and purity,and the phenomena of "one mind" refers to all phenomena that transform according to the impurity potency or the pure potency.For the specific process of the appearance of phenomena,The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan illustrates it by the commutatively perfuming among entrenched ignorance and derivative ignorance.Based on the theory of "one mind",The Methods of Mahayana s Chi-guan demonstrates its special cessation-and-contemplation method.It considers that practicing cessation can help people attain in the field of the essence of "one mind",while practicing contemplation can help people know the arise of phenomena and let them aid others.The special part is unlike the sequence of traditional cessation-and-contemplation,cessation-and-contemplation in The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan make contemplation the first step,and based cessation on the practice results of contemplation.The author considers that this kind of cessation-and-contemplation actually abandons traditional cessation and the cessation in The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan is also subject to contemplation.Secondly,this paper makes an investigation of the position of The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan in the history of Chinese Buddhism,and specifically discusses its relationship with The Awakening of Mhayana Faith and The Summary of The Great Vehicle translated by Paramartha.According to the analysis,from the ideological connotation of The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan it is logically in the later stage of the dispute between masters of the Ten Stages school and masters of the Mahayana-samgraha,and has a clear tendency to reconcile the theoretical contradictions between these two schools.Comparing with the reconciliation of these two schools in The Awakening of Mhayana Faith,the way of coalescence in The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan is more thoroughly.Finally,this paper compares the thought of "Buddha nature of purity and impurity�in The Methods of Mahayana s Chi-guan with the thought of "Buddha nature of good and evil" of Tiantai Sect.It is found by comparison that although the former thought has a very similar reasoning structure with the thought of "Buddha nature of good and evil" in GuanyinXuanyi,it is fundamentally different from the general thought of Zhiyi,which is based on the interfusion of the three truths.Therefore,the author thinks that The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan can not be judged as the work of Huisi because of the similarity between the theory of The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan and GuanyinXuanyi.But at the same time,we can not ignore the high similarity between these two thoughts because of the different theory core between The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan and theory of Zhiyi.The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan attempts to combine dependent arising from the pure tathagatagarbha and dependent arising from the impure store consciousness,and builds a monistic system info through constructing the thought of"one mind".The core idea of this system is "different meanwhile undifferentiated".Among them,the "undifferentiated" guarantees the equality of the essence of�one mind",and the "different" guarantees the relative existence of all phenomena.Comparing with the traditional tathagatagarbha,the greatest creation of The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan lies in that it takes the impurity nature into "one mind" and making "one mind" not only the basis of impurity phenomena,but also the immediate cause of it,thus solving the problem of the derivation of ignorance.However,the author believes that this solution of The Methods of Mahayana s Chi-guan can not achieve logical self consistency,so it can not be said that it completely solves this problem.And the author thinks that The Methods of Mahayana's Chi-guan takes impurity into "one mind" is just an expediency.