Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism by Brook A. Ziporyn (review)

Brook Ziporyn sees the doctrine of the Three Truths and the doctrine of “opening the provisional to reveal the real” as the two pillars of Tiantai 天台 Buddhism. In this volume, he aims to provide an introduction to Tiantai Buddhism accessible to the general reader with a philosophical background.

Structurally, the whole volume consists of ten chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue. In explicating the Three Marks of the Buddhist Dharmas, namely, (1) “All conditioned things are impermanent” (p. 17), (2) “All conditioned things are suffering” (p. 18), and (3) “All elements of experience are nonself” (p. 19) in chapter 1, Ziporyn reminds us that the Buddhist goal is not to control but rather to let go of suffering. On the way towards understanding the innovative Tiantai doctrine of the Three Truths, the second chapter provides a summary of the traditional view of the Two Truths. The third chapter begins with an illustration of the different approaches to the traditional concept of Emptiness (kong 空). Ziporyn innovatively interprets the Tiantai conception of Emptiness as “ontological ambiguity.” This enables him to explain why the Tiantai concept of Emptiness is defined both in terms of impermanence and permanence. In the fourth chapter, Ziporyn tries to clarify the meaning of the analogy of Buddha-nature as space in the Mahāyāna tradition. According to him, like space, the Buddha-nature is always already present. This analogy might help to further explain why every sentient being has the potential to become a Buddha. In the following two chapters Ziporyn sums up the basic ideas of the Lotus Sutra. As is well-known, the rise of Tiantai Buddhism was founded upon the Lotus Sutra. In pointing out that the Lotus Sutra, as a teaching on teaching, tells us that “Buddhas teach only bodhisattvas” (p. 71), Ziporyn concisely illuminates in what way the Lotus Sutra is a text of the One Vehicle. His point, as I understood it, suggests that the Lotus Sutra treats all sentient beings as bodhisattvas. However, given the fact that most of the Western readers might have been exposed to the Hobbesian view of human beings as ego-centric, it is not easy for them to believe in the possibility of the bodhisattva that is full of compassion for other living beings. Accordingly, it would be wise for Ziporyn to spend more pages in explaining the feasibility of the One Vehicle. In chapters 6 and 7, Ziporyn argues that the Tiantai Buddhist reading of the Lotus Sutra gives rise to two major theses. First, “no single viewpoint—not even of a Buddha, a single Buddha—can ever encompass the ultimate reality of all things” (p. 89). Second, every sentient being is a past-life memory of the Buddha. They not only lend support to his interpretation of the Tiantai concept of “Emptiness” as “illimitable ambiguity” (p. 159), but also help to understand why Tiantai Buddhism insists on an identity between all sentient beings and the Buddha.

In chapter 8, Ziporyn claims that in contrast to the Two Truths theory that denies the reality of things, the Three Truths theory—with the addition of the Center—grants ultimate reality to all things. But in chapter 2 Ziporyn had argued that Buddhist doctrine and ethic are merely methods. One might then wonder in what way such methods can grant ultimate reality to all things. Especially, Ziporyn might be expected to clarify the difference between Tiantai Buddhism and realism. In this chapter, Ziporyn also attempts to illuminate the Tiantai concept of “Emptiness” in terms of the thesis that “whatever is locally coherent is also globally incoherent” (p. 147). In his eyes, this accordingly gives rise to the necessity of incessant re-contextualization. His gestalt-switch approach, however, can hardly justify the view of such an ambiguity to be “ontological.” Correlatively, for Ziporyn, the doctrine of “opening the provisional to reveal the real” specifies...