Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

he was quite well practiced himself in meditation,
instructed his disciples in it, and thus in the Tian Tai
School the practice of meditation has always been well
stressed. By this, of course, we do not mean that
meditation is confined to the Tian Tai. Every school has
its meditations. It is said in the bodhisattva precepts that
a wisdom-being must meditate three times a day on
sunyata (see also Ch. VI, B, 2, b). This is a practice of
the Vinaya School. We should know that unless works
of this sort are done regularly, there can be no practical
method of Buddhadharma. Therefore, the great merit of
the Tian Tai lies in its thorough treatises upon
meditation which were compiled before those of any
other school.
As we mentioned before, the Sandhinirmocana Sutra
was not translated until nearly 200 years after Zhi Yi's
death and it is in this sutra that we find the essence of
yoga. According to this work, then, Zhi Yi made some
unavoidable mistakes, particularly not distinguishing
clearly between samatha and samapatti.
For the sake of simplicity, and due to the fact that an
English translation is available, let us examine his small
work, which outlines the Tian Tai meditations.
1. The Practice of Samatha
There are three meanings of this, according to Zhi Yi:
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