This paper examines the arguments developed by the Ming-Dynasty Buddhist scholar-monk Youxi Chuandeng 幽溪傳燈 (1554-1628) in order to establish the Tiantai Buddhist doctrine that "thusness" (Skt. Tathatā; Chi. zhenru 真如) — "reality as it really is" (zhenshi 真實）— contains "inherent badness" (xing'e 性惡). In his seminal tract of Tiantai Buddhist apologetics, the Treatise on Goodness and Badness Inherent in Nature (Xing shan e lun 性善惡論), Chuandeng develops the doctrine that the "dharmas" (fa 法) — the basic constituents that comprise the entirety of reality — have coexisting "dispositions" (xingde 性德) of "inherent goodness" (xing shan 性善) and inherent badness. Chuandeng argues that the "unsatisfactoriness" (Skt. Duḥkha; Chi. ku 苦) of life as it is ordinarily lived in due to the activation of the inherent badness within the dharmas. In so doing, Chuandeng upholds the Tiantai teaching that the "liberation" (Chi. jietuo 解脫) from the unsatisfactoriness of quotidian life is contingent upon an engagement with the inherent badness in the dharmas composing reality.
1. Introduction 92 2. One Omnipresent Nature of Thusness 107 2.1 The doctrine of the mutual identity of the ten realms (shijie xiangji 十界相即) 109 2.2 The doctrine of “the mutual identity of essence and function” ( ti yong xiangji 體用相即) 114 2.3 The teaching of “original inclusion” (benju 本具) of essence and function in each, and every, dharma 124 2.4 The one omnipresent nature of thusness is differentiated yet remains undifferentiated 129 3. Inherent Goodness and Inherent Badness are Interpenetrating within One Omnipresent Nature of Thusness 133 3.1 The doctrine of the “interfusion and interpenetration of Li and shi” (Li shi rongtong 理事融通) 136 3.2 Li “Longitudinally Runs Through” (zong 縱) shi in one omnipresent nature of thusness 140 3.3 Ti infuses the dharmas with goodness and badness in their ti 142 4. Conclusion 149
