天台宗的「圓極架構」 : 關於天台宗圓教所統攝之救度學、存有學與語言用法三方面的脈絡線索之探究=Entelechy as Structural Clue to the System of Tiantai Teaching -- The Threefold Link-age of Soteriology, Ontology and Paradoxical Articulation in Tiantai Teaching
天台宗圓教=perfect teaching of the Tiantai school; 圓極; 圓滿實現=entelechy-ultimate completion; 存有學=ontology; 真實根源=ground of reality; 分殊根源=ground of diversity; 救度觀=soteriology; 價值引導=instructional value; 敵對相即=non-duality of opposites; 弔詭表述=paradoxical articulation
This investigation attempts to mediate between doctrinal language of Tiantai Buddhism and a modern usage of language fitting its philosophical interpretation. I choose the philosophical term 'entelechy' as the key-concept of this mediation for a certain reason: One of this con-cept's expressions translated into modern Chinese is a neologism that exactly corresponds to a technical term in doctrinal language of Tiantai Buddhism. The Tiantai Buddhist meaning of it could be rendered as ”ultimate completion” in English. Although this correspondence seems to be a coincidence, which does not hint at any affinity between Bud-dhism and the respective western traditions referring to 'entelechy', this Chinese term simultaneously meaning 'ultimate completion' and 'entelechy' could provide a structural clue to illuminate the threefold linkage between Tiantai soteriology, its ontology and its apparent feature of paradoxical articulation. The literal meaning of 'entelechy' apart from its understanding in the philosophy of Aristoteles is 'including one's ultimate end [of completion]' derived from the Greek roots of 'including' and 'telos [=end]'. If we just resort to that structure based on the literal meaning of this term, we can find a key to disclose the constitutive elements in the system of Tiantai teaching. The famous Tiantai doctrine of 'one-moment-thought involving three thousand worlds [=totality of all things]' refers to the soteriological viewpoint that each moment of sentient beings' mental activity contains the potential of completing the ultimate end of universal salvation with regard to all sentient beings. Realization of this potency is based on teaching and transformation, which in turn is understood as an extension of 'contemplating one's own mind'. 'Self-transformation' based on 'contemplating one's mind' includes its extension to the transformation of deluded sentient beings by means of teaching. Therefore each moment-thought includes universal reference to the world of all sentient beings. The ontological meaning indivisibly linked with this soteriological ideal, then, expresses that each moment of sentient beings' mental activity presupposes the existence of its environmental world to which it necessarily refers. Mental activity and the totality of all its references mean 'existence in/with and of one's environmental world'. This again points back to the soteriological meaning that all sentient beings' fades of salvation must be interrelated. Consequently, one's own progress on the path for salvation benefits that of other sentient beings and vice versa, which is expressed by the Tiantai doctrine of 'benefiting oneself as benefiting others'. Each moment of existence is indispensable and necessary, be-cause its interrelation with others points to the ultimate value of universal salvation. The ultimate value of sentient beings' profane existence consists of its instructional clue to universal salvation for all sentient beings. The Tiantai-school expresses this idea by means of paradoxical articulation-such as 'non-duality between the sacred and pro-fane'. Each transi
