Tiantai - Influence

Influence

David Chappell writes that although the Tiantai school, "has the reputation of being...the most comprehensive and diversified school of Chinese Buddhism, it is almost unknown in the West" despite having a "religious framework that seemed suited to adapt to other cultures, to evolve new practices, and to universalize Buddhism". He attributes this failure of expansion to the school having "narrowed its practice to a small number of rituals" and because it has "neglected the intellectual breadth and subtlety of its founder".

Read more about this topic:  Tiantai

Famous quotes containing the word influence:

    Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Perhaps I stand now on the eve of a new life, shall watch the sun rise and disappear behind a black cloud extending out into a grey sky cover. I shall not be deceived by its glory. If it is to be so, there is work and the influence that work brings, but not happiness. Am I strong enough to face that?
    Beatrice Potter Webb (1858–1943)

    The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man’s existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)