Great Cessation-and-Contemplation Volume I

The Great Cessation-and-Contemplation (Mohezhiguan, T. 1911) by Tiantai Zhiyi (538–597) is one of the most influential texts in East Asian Buddhism. It provided the foundation for Tiantai Buddhism as one of the two major Buddhist philosophical schools in China, and was widely influential in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. A monumental survey of the vast expanse of Buddhist teachings and practices in terms of the broad rubric of “cessation-and-contemplation” (Skt. śamatha-vipaśyanā, “calming and insight”), the text includes many concrete instructions on preparing for and undertaking a variety of practices. Not simply a manual for the practice of meditation, the Great Cessation-and-Contemplation is more a treatise, the culmination of Zhiyi’s analysis on the theory and application of Buddhist meditative practice.

Due to the text’s length, the BDK English Tripiṭaka translation is published in two volumes. Volume I includes Chapters I–VI and the first part of Chapter VII; Volume II contains the remainder of Chapter VII.