Being and Ambiguity: Philosophical Experiments with Tiantai Buddhism

By Brook Ziporyn

Being and Ambiguity, while making use of the methods of the Western tradition, proposes a paradigm shift derived from Chinese Buddhism's Tiantai school. Using Tiantai's "Three Truths," Ziporyn brings insights to questions of identity, determinacy, contextuality, being, desire, boredom, addiction, love, and truth. By turns rigorously analytic and irreverent, the book offers a meaningful and enjoyable reading experience in comparative philosophy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812695429
• ISBN13: 9780812695427
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Open Court
• Length: 428 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Nonduality Crushes Metaphysics: The Further Reaches of Emptiness

This is One. Wild. Ride. Within these 450 pages, Chinese scholar Brook Ziporyn takes us on a philosophical romp, winging us through the deepest metaphysical waters imaginable, streamed through the lens of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism, slaying one philosophical sacred cow after another while providing a whole new way of understanding just about everything - with ideas such as omnipresence, intersubsumption, ontological ambiguity, reversible asness, setup/punchline structure, the Center, inherent entailment, self-negating/affirming, constitutive impossibility, and a greatly expanded understanding of the central Buddhist concept of shunyata-emptiness. It's contemporary cross-cultural philosophical entertainment par excellence, but it comes at a price: the complete demolition of any ground, foundation, primary ontology, or sacred idea whatsoever... but, hey, as you'll see - that's the punchline! Z's tongue-in-cheek Preface plunges you immediately into the nondual paradox theme that runs throughout the rest of the book. I've been reading Being and Ambiguity over a period of several years, working my way slowly, reading and rereading, digesting one kernel after another, writing pages of notes, arguing with him, learning from him, attempting to absorb what amounts to _taking classic Mahayana nonduality to its final end_, from the Two Truths to the Three Truths and beyond. To Indo-Tibetan practitioners, it may seem preposterous to suggest that Chinese Buddhism develops Middle Way philosophy beyond the Two Truths doctrine but, having spent 30 years with Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies, I can say that it does. The best essay describing why this is the case is Ziporyn's "Why Chinese Buddhist Philosophy?", available on his U of Chicago website "Moretoitivities." To make a rough comparison, it could be said that _Tiantai is to Mahayana as Mahayana is to Hinayana_. One can only appreciate this comparison by making the effort to study the Chinese philosophical milieu that Tiantai developed in, side by side with Daoism, Confucianism, and Chinese indigenous philosophy, as well as the great Chan and Huayen Buddhist schools. Professor Ziporyn writes a good overview article on Tiantai Buddhism that is available online in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The philosophical approach outlined here is thoroughgoing, unique, and challenging, a gorgeous synthesis of Daoist and Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics, developed and presented to demonstrate resolutions to the many conundrums and sticky issues in Western philosophy. Hence the subtitle, "philosophical experiments." In one sense, it can be seen as taking the idea of _postmodern situatedness_ to its final conclusion, becoming a radical holism or contextualism without being fundamentalist. For someone who's pursued holistic and systems studies his entire life, for whom holism has been like a holy grail, the approach here closes the circle. The crux is perhaps this: the ask of Tiantai Buddhist metaphysics is to let go of what is arguably the most pervasive assumption of Indo-European speaking cultures: _salvation projects_ and _insistence on metaphysical-philosophical-spiritual ultimacy-finality_. Whether it's the pursuit to know God, Being, Non-Being, Perfect Awakening, Ultimate Nature, Final Truth, the big nonattachment ask here (which is what nondual emptiness has always pushed us towards), is to leave That Raft behind and instead rest in radical paradox, holism, and ambiguity accompanied by deep humility, simplicity, and immediacy. Abide in gratitude, embrace the world... something like that.