It is said that Dōshō 道昭, who introduced the Hossō idea to Japan, only stood up once every three or seven days when he entered meditation. This suggests that he may have practiced nirodha-samāpatti. His disciple, Gyōki 行基, is said to have had many spiritual experiences and mysterious intimations, which may have been related to the practice of śamatha. Tokuitsu 徳一 wrote the Shikan-ron 止観論 （“Treatise on Cessation and Observation”）, and critical comments on it by Saichō mention several texts that the Hossō sect may have used for meditation. In addition to the Chinese translations of the Yogācārabhūmi 瑜伽師地論, the Sandhinirmocana-sūtra 解深密経, and the Abhidharmasamuccaya 雑集論, these texts include the translations by Yijing of the Zhiguanmen lunsong 止観門論頌, and Liumen jiaoshou lun 六門教授論. There is also a reference to the “18 Methods of Cessation and Observation” 十八門止観, which may have been a separate version of the one chapter of the Sandhinirmocana. Hossō’s view of cessation （śamatha） is that it is concentration on a single object, and his view of observation （vipaśyanā） is that it is detailed observation of the mind-action occurring in the same mind at that time. This is different from the Tendai understanding for cessation and observation. I posit that Tokuitsu’s treatise was written with this distinction in mind, in order to show the basic understanding of cessation and observation in the Hossō sect.
