Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism

Brook Ziporyn is a scholar of Chinese Buddhist philosophy, and this book, published by Indiana University Press, is an academic introduction to Tiantai Buddhism's distinctive philosophical concept of emptiness and omnipresence, working from the school's own classical Chinese textual sources. Its strength is that Ziporyn specializes specifically in Tiantai thought and its difficult technical philosophical vocabulary, giving the introduction real depth rather than treating Tiantai as a minor variant of more commonly discussed Chinese Buddhist schools. Its limit is that it is written as a philosophical introduction assuming some background in Buddhist thought generally, so a reader new to Buddhist philosophy overall may find it demanding as a first exposure to the tradition, though its explanations of Tiantai specifically are considered clear by specialists.