connecting teaching ［通教］ ( tsū-gyō): One of the four teachings of doctrine, a classification of Shakyamuni’s teachings set forth by T’ien-t’ai (538–597). The connecting teaching corresponds to introductory Mahayana. It is so called because it forms a link between the Tripitaka teaching (Hinayana) and the specific teaching (a higher level of Mahayana). Like the Tripitaka teaching, the connecting teaching involves casting off attachment to the threefold world. On the other hand, like the specific teaching, the connecting teaching denies the view of the Tripitaka teaching that nothing, when analyzed thoroughly and reduced to its constituents, can be found in any of its components, and that hence all things exist as mere concepts and are without substance. Thus this view equates non-substantiality with nothingness. In contrast, the connecting teaching sets forth the view that all things, just as they are, are without substance and they arise and disappear only by virtue of dependent origination. Whereas the Tripitaka teaching is addressed to voice-hearers and cause-awakened ones and the specific teaching to bodhisattvas, the connecting teaching is addressed to all of them.