Tiantai - Teachings - The Threefold Truth

The Threefold Truth

The Tiantai school took up the principle of The Threefold Truth, derived from Nāgārjuna:

  1. Phenomena are empty of self-nature,
  2. Phenomena exist provisionally from a worldly perspective,
  3. Phenomena are both empty of existence and exist provisionally at once.

The transient world of phenomena is thus seen as one with the unchanging, undifferentiated substratum of existence. This doctrine of interpenetration is reflected in the Tiantai teaching of three thousand realms in a single moment of thought.

The Threefold Truth has its basis in Nāgārjuna:

All things arise through causes and conditions.

That I declare as emptiness.
It is also a provisional designation.

It is also the meaning of the Middle Path.

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