Hello, everyone.
The title of my paper is "From Two Truths to Three Truths to No Truth?: The Threefold Truths and the 'No Truth' Doctrine in Tiantai Buddhism."
In this paper, I trace the development of the doctrine of the Two Truths from the perspective of Abhidhamma scholars to its interpretation by proponents from the Madhyamaka tradition to that which is advanced by adherents of the Chinese Tiantai school of Buddhism and conclude that the “No Truth” doctrine that Zhiji, one of the chief representatives of the Tiantai approach to the Buddhist teachings, advocates ultimately undermines his claim that there is only one truth. He endorses the Madhyamaka version of the Two Truths to some extent but then identifies a third truth that is not recognized by any other proponents of the Madhyamaka tradition, namely, the truth of the “middle,” which appears to be a synthesis of the Madhyamaka concepts of truth and conventional reality. Zhiji then argues that the Three Truths (emptiness, conventional truth, and the middle) ultimately constitute a single truth which, upon further review, dissolves into his “No Truth” doctrine.
Is anyone else working on Tiantai Buddhism?
