Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism

336 Pages·2016·7.424 MB·English

by  Brook A. Ziporyn

E M P T I N E S S
A N D
O M N I P R E S E N C E
World Philosophies
Bret W. Davis, D. A. Masolo, and Alejandro Vallega, editors
E M P T I N E S S
A N D
O M N I P R E S E N C E
AN ESSENTIAL INTRODUCTION TO TIANTAI BUDDHISM
BROOK A. ZIPORYN
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington & Indianapolis
This book is a publication of Manufactured in the
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Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA Names: Ziporyn, Brook, [date] author.
Title: Emptiness and omnipresence : an
iupress.indiana.edu essential introduction to Tiantai
Buddhism / Brook A. Ziporyn.
© 2016 by Brook A. Ziporyn Description: Bloomington ; Indianapolis :
Indiana University Press, [2016] |
All rights reserved Series: World philosophies | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
No part of this book may be reproduced Identifiers: LCCN 2015040149|
or utilized in any form or by any means, ISBN 9780253021083 (cl : alk. paper) |
electronic or mechanical, including ISBN 9780253021120 (pb : alk. paper) |
photocopying and recording, or by ISBN 9780253021205 (eb)
any information storage and retrieval Subjects: LCSH: Tiantai Buddhism.
system, without permission in writing Classification: LCC BQ9118.5 .Z57 2016 |
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To the monster of the sea: dragon palace at full fathom five and
green thunderbolts of will and wave and endlessly reflecting
gazing abyss, all of the above and all of the below.

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 Just Here Is the End of Suffering: Letting
Suffering Be in Early Buddhism 3
2 Rafts and Arrows: The Two Truths in
Pre­Tiantai Buddhism 23
3 Neither Thus nor Otherwise: Mahāyāna
Approaches to Emptiness 37
4 Buddha­Nature and Original
Enlightenment 54
5 How to Not Know What You’re Doing:
Introduction to the Lotus Sūtra 68
6 The New Middle Way: Highlights of the
Lotus Sūtra in Tiantai Context 86
7 The Interpervasion of All Points of View:
From the Lotus Sūtra to Tiantai 117
8 Tiantai: The Multiverse as You 143
9 Experiencing Tiantai: Experiments
with Tiantai Practice 178
10 Tiantai Ethics and the Worst­Case Scenario 235
Epilogue: So Far and Yet So Close 273
Notes 287
Bibliography and Suggested Reading 303
Index 309
PREFACE
Contemporary philosophical consciousness finds itself
in a disorienting situation. The dissolution of monolithic conceptual
hegemonies that has occurred in the wake of intensified intercultural
communication presents a new set of challenges, calling for a way for­
ward that both respects and creatively develops the unwieldy diversity
of seemingly incommensurate cultural systems that are now beginning
to come into contact with one another. These unprecedented challenges,
however, also provide unprecedented opportunities. Traditional Chi­
nese Buddhist thought can make a claim for particularly close philo­
sophical attention in this cultural situation in that it preserves for us the
record of perhaps one of the only commensurate premodern examples of
an analogous philosophical predicament. Chinese Buddhism emerged
from the world­historical encounter between two deeply disparate cul­
tural and philosophical traditions: the indigenous traditions of India
(and, more generally, Indo­European cultures) and East Asian cultures.
The earliest attempt at a thoroughgoing Sinitic reworking of the
Indian Buddhist tradition is found in the Tiantai school, founded in
the fifth century ce, which through supreme intellectual effort forged
a vocabulary with which to bring these two worlds of thought into cre­
ative dialogue, developing a synthesis that simultaneously satisfies their
very dissimilar demands, thereby producing an entirely new vision of
Buddhism and indeed of the human condition. In its full flowering,
Tiantai creates the most rigorous theoretical edifice in all of East Asian
intellectual history, using modes of argumentation and praxis that are
derived squarely from Indian Buddhism but in the service of ideals and
ix