Tánluán left home to enter the Buddhist monastic system in Wutái shan when he was fourteen, and studied Buddhist and non-Buddhist scriptures and treatises diligently. He especially liked The Madhyamaka-sastra(Zhonglùn), The Sata-sastra (Bailùn), The Dvadasanikaya-sastra(Shíèr mén lùn), Mahaprajñaparamita-sastra (Dàzhìdù lùn), as well as Buddhist scriptures corresponding to the meaning of the observing emptiness (kongguan) related to mahayana. When he was newly renounced his secular life, he was not a believer of pureland, but a scholar of Kongguan School. Not until his old age when he started the pureland studies, he spent forty years in the apprehension of the essential emptiness of existence. He not only inhereted Sengzhào emptiness thoughts, but also took Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu's thought in. This paper is a study of "Continuity of ten recitations" and "Rebirth but Non-rebirth" trying to explore how Tánluánuse kongguan to develop pureland teaching. First, the paper presents how Tánluán elucidated the meditation methods, then explains the Rebirth but Non-rebirth thought from the meaning of kongguan. The continuity of ten recitations is the guidance to direct the sentient being lower class as the awakening of the original enlightened mind. There are distinctions between the two. He said in his book review Wangsheng lùnzhù, "Knowing birth as non-birth is the higher class od sentient being. The lower class of sentient being need to make use of ten recitations to achieve rebirth." Such description clarifies the distinctions; two apart thoughts with close relations; from which relation we see the thought of emptiness in Tánluán's teaching.
