Emptiness and Omnipresence

March 14, 2011
Photographs of personable stuffed creatures, handmade by Oles, appear in photographs with brief imperative phrases for each letter of the alphabet. "Eat the crust for me," requests a yellow and floral-printed bear with a red button nose. A cat in a pink, lacy dress insists, "Outfit me," while a green bear with a thermometer in its mouth peeks from beneath a blanket: "Take care of me." Enhanced with digital
accessories throughout, Oles's goggle-eyed dolls make for whimsically goofy stars, delivering the cozy message about protection, love, and commitment. All ages.

April 11, 2016
Ziporyn, professor of ancient and medieval Chinese religion and philosophy at the University of Chicago, offers a casual but dense introduction to the lesser-known Tiantai school of Buddhism. He examines the philosophical and religious ideas within the Lotus Sutra and three representative figures of the school: Tiantai Zhiyi, Jingxi Zhanran, and Siming Zhili. Tiantai’s basic premises are jarring and seem blasphemous for those acquainted with popular understandings of Buddhism: “Buddhahood inherently includes every form of evil,” and each experience includes all other possible experiences interpreted in all possible ways; dwelling more deeply in suffering and delusion leads to liberation and freedom. By explaining Tiantai Buddhism’s radically paradoxical conception of a holistic, monistic universe, Ziporyn reveals the Tiantai understanding to be underpinned by emptiness as ontological and illimitable ambiguity. He aims for an introduction “divested of both technical detail and philosophical baggage” and succeeds for the most part; readers are, however, expected to be very comfortable with dense theoretical investigation. Those who take the journey with Ziporyn will find a rich and rewarding work, not simply due to the mind-boggling Tiantai doctrine, but also because of Ziporyn’s respect for the tradition and his extraordinary finesse in presenting its demanding ideas.