Intangible Culture ISSN:2799-3868(Print) 무형문화연구

In his 『observation of mind about āhāra-dharma』, Tian-Tai Zhiyi described the procedence of the dharma-āhāra of the great vehicle of observation of mind about āhāra. The new āhāra obtained through the begging for food is called prajñapti(假), the lack of substance of āhāra is called śūnyatā(空), and the mysterious distinction between old āhāra and new āhāra were called middle path(中道). In this way, meditation the perfect interfusion of the threefold truth through āhāra is also called the meditative insight about āhāra-dharma. The meditative insight about āhāra-dharma is a contemplating phenomena that includes the functionality of āhāra, which allows one to ultimately attain dharma-āhāra of the great vehicle such as the āhāra of joy in the dharma and the nourishment from meditative bliss, by contemplating āhāra as a restraint through begging and the āhāra of the perfect interfusion of the threefold truth during the process of eating food. In this paper, I examined the functionality of āhāra through the meditative insight about āhāra-dharma of Tian-Tai Zhiyi. This is because ‘bringing something’ that is related to physical and mental functionality is āhāra. In the four kinds of food, sensory āhāra, āhāra for thought, and cognition as nourishment can be operated smoothly by material food(段食) as an energy source, and through āhāra as an energy source, it can result in the dharma-āhāra of the great vehicle, such as the nourishment from meditative bliss, vow-sustenance, nourishment from thought, āhāra of liberation, and the āhāra of joy in the dharma. Therefore, the meditative insight about āhāra-dharma of Tian-Tai Zhiyi opens the path of the mind to the supramundane āhāra through the mundane āhāra, and can be said to be a representative contemplating phenomena of āhāra in the the dharma-āhāra of the great vehicle for the increase of nāma-rūpa.