PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

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Pacific World
For Zhiyi this is also the distinction between ritual repentance and
meditation. For Zhiyi meditation is largely the meditative visualization
of the buddhas performed within the context of the five-limbed pūjā, the
wuhui (), or fivefold repentance, that became standard for the Tiantai
tradition. Importantly, the overarching paradigm is one of repentance,
no matter whether it is a matter of ritual repentance or meditative
visualization.
It is useful in this context to note Zhiyi’s view of the efficacy of ritual
repentance and meditation. In section 5, at the end of his Fahua sanmei
xingfa (), Procedure for Performing the Lotus Samādhi, 111 Zhiyi
discussed those signs that confirmed the successful practice of this
ritual. He distinguished three classes of practitioners, those with inferior,
intermediate, and superior karmic endowments. 112 Within each class
he further distinguished three grades, those of the lowest, middling,
and highest order. At the lowest of these nine orders the practitioner
may experience such things as numinous anomalies, good dreams, or
a sharpening of the senses. 113 The practitioner of the highest of the nine
orders, however, 114
while engaged in walking, sitting, or reciting, [may] feel his body
and mind suddenly become pure, whereupon he inters deep
dhyāna absorption. Enlightened insight distinguishes [all things]
clearly, [and yet] his mind experiences no fluctuation. Immersed
in such a condition of dhyāna absorption he sees the Bodhisattva
Universal Worthy [Samantabhadra], the World-Honored
[Buddhas] Śākyamuni and Many Jewels [Prabhātaratna], and their
manifestation bodies, as well as the buddhas of the ten directions.
He acquires unimpeded great dhāraṇī, realizes purification of the
six senses, [acquires the power to] universally manifest bodies of
form [throughout the universe], opens forth the wisdom/views
of a buddha, and enters the ranks of bodhisattvahood, all as is
expounded at length in the Sutra on the Visualization of Universal
Worthy. 115
In other words, by Zhiyi’s own testimony, through the performance
of a cycle of ritual repentance and its accompanying meditative
visualization(s), a practitioner may be able to attain direct perception
of reality and be able to enter the bodhisattva path.
Zhiyi’s distinction between shichan and lichan is also the tack that
Daoshi adopted in the “Chapter on Repentance” to interpret different
approaches to repentance. 116 His colleague Daoxuan also used this
distinction to organize his discussion of repentance, albeit largely within
the context of the vinaya. 117 Daoxuan also ranked these two types of
repentance in terms of the capacities of the practitioners: the practice of