of one who desires enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.

There is, in these

three characterizations, some semblance to Brassards categories of the metaphysical
(ultimate), functional (aspirational), and ethical (practical). And, as with Brassard, there is
some understanding that these three aspects are interdependent.
Evil and/or/as The Good: Omnicentrism, Intersubjectivity, and Value Paradox in
Tiantai Buddhist Thought. By Brook Ziporyn. Harvard-Yenching Monograph no. 51.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Pp. x 482. Hardcover $60.00.
Reviewed by David R. Loy Bunkyo University
Does Mahayana Buddhism have a problem with evil? Buddhism generally focuses
on ignorance (a problem of understanding) rather than evil (Abrahamic sin is more
a problem of the will). Early Buddhism does have a lot to say about the three roots
of evil, which need to be transformed into their positive counterpartsgreed into
generosity, ill will into loving-kindness, ignorance into wisdom. But the Mahayana
emphasis on su nyata puts a different slant on sam

sa ra. The focus on realizing emp-

tiness seems to work better for ignorance/delusion than for evil: wisdom/prajn a
involves realizing that everything is su nya. Then how are we to distinguish good
from evil deeds, if from the highest point of view they are equally su nya?
We can get another angle on what is at stake by using the metaphor of Indras
net, which implies paradoxes for knowledge and value. Every node is a jewel that
reflects all the other nodesbut that means deluded nodes manifest all those
others as much as enlightened ones do. We may want to distinguish between
those nodes that are aware of the true nature of the net and those that are not, but
every node is an effect (and cause) of all the others. One cannot adopt a birds-eye
view that observes the whole objectively, because the net does not allow for sub
specie aeternitas; any perspective we might take is nothing more than one more in-
terdependent node.
There is the same problem with distinguishing between good and evil activities.
We want to say that there is a significant difference between a selfish action and a
compassionate one, but Indras net gives us no criterion to discriminate between
them, inasmuch as every node manifests the whole as well as every other node,
whether or not it knows it or intends it. We can play word games about what is truth
and what is delusion, but when we turn to good and evil the stakes become very
high. Are we really willing to accept that from the highest point of view crashing a
hijacked airliner into a skyscraper is no better or worse than the compassionate acts
of a Buddha?
In 1016 the well-known Tiantai master Siming Zhili (9601028) publicly an-
nounced he intended to do something that he acknowledged was evil. He defended
himself by asking What difference is there between the Buddha and the devil? . . .
[S]ince the original natures of the two are merged together from the beginning, how
could their manifestations be any different from one another? . . . [O]ther than the
devil there is no Buddha, and other than the Buddha there is no devil.
Philosophy East & West Volume 54, Number 1 January 2004 99103 99
> 2004 by University of Hawaii Press
Brook Ziporyns monograph Evil and/or/as The Good is a detailed exposition
and subtle defense of Zhilis argument identifying value and anti-value, with ample
reference to Western ethical theory as well as to the Chinese Buddhist context for his
position. Ziporyn elaborates Zhilis claim that good and evil are nothing but two
names for a single entity, which means that each term alone is a way to denote all
that exists. For Zhili the perfect man is capable of both good and evil (p. 74).
Ziporyn reflects on how the Chinese tradition provides an alternative to the
usual antithetical way we understand the relationship between good and evil. The
Tiantai school, in particular, was known for attributing Buddha-nature to evil. He
begins by explaining omnicentric holism. Indras Net is an example (although one
not much used in this book): any point in the system can be the center to which
everything else is subordinated and which everything else supports and explains.
Since this includes all subjectivity, any subjects misapprehension of the whole also
becomes a complete and adequate apprehension of that whole. Value paradoxes
arise because omnicentrism implies a different epistemology: every possible appre-
hension is not only valid but self-validating, neither an illusion nor a distortion of
reality, and not subject to invalidation by a privileged perspective (p. 62). The
holism of good and evil results in the claim that since either good or evil by it-
self contains the other and the whole, we do not need to transcend either one; each
is sufficient to embrace the whole.
The basic issue is the relationship between that ultimate truth and the provi-
sional truth. For Nagarjuna that relationship is fixed and one-directional: ordinary
language practices are necessary for expressing the highest truth. For Tiantai, how-
ever, the provisional ends up being equal to the ultimate truth: all statements are
both provisionally true and ultimately false, and to be provisionally true is itself a
form of being ultimately true (p. 107). Delusion does not obscure an implicit en-
lightenment, it expresses an intrinsic enlightenment; and enlightenment can also be
read as an expression of delusion. All views can now be seen to be provisional
posits: each one false if taken literally as the only true perspective, but all are true if
they are taken as heuristic claims leading to a realization that every possible view
includes all the others, and that each is therefore a valid center and starting point.
The same point applies to good/evil. Because intent/action is not owned by any-
one, everything that happensHitlers deeds as much as S

akyamunisworks as
upaya for creating Buddhahood.
That any one starting point ends up revealing all the others, that whatever is
always reveals itself as (caused by and effecting) something elsethese are impor-
tant implications of omnicentric holism. But I have difficulty accepting (or following)
the next move: that this implies that good and bad are identical. That they imply
each other and depend on each other, yes, but to assert that they are the same neg-
ates too absolutely the necessary function that duality serves within ordinary dis-
course and life. Perhaps that is Zhilis point, where he is more enlightened than the
rest of us, but if so it seems dangerously one-sided, to say the least. And it is not
completely clear that this one-sidedness adequately reflects Zhilis considered posi-
tion. Ziporyn mentions that Zhili emphasizes two levels pertaining to practice: one
100 Philosophy East & West
in which good is realized and evil is cut off, and another in which there is nothing to
be realized or cut off (p. 271). Does Ziporyns argument emphasize too much the
latter at the cost of the former? The fundamental issue, again, is the relationship be-
tween them.
The implications of identifying good and evil are startling, and Ziporyn does not
hesitate to draw them out. Enlightenment means not the overcoming of evil so as
to manifest good but the full manifestation and realization of both good and evil
(p. 301). The problem when you hate or lust is that you do not do it thoroughly
enough (p. 310). Evil must be fully realized, and this simultaneously entails its
overcoming (p. 312). Zhili says that the more we dwell on an evil, the more we are
free of it. To transcend it and to realize it are one and the same process. As
Ziporyn glosses, the only way to handle ineradicable evil and suffering is to involve
ourselves in it, by accepting it and adding additional elements that recontextualize
and transform it.
How does this apply if I am, say, a cannibalistic serial killer converted to Zhilis
version of Tiantai? First, I should not strive to discard my tendency to kill and eat
strangers; rather, I should contemplate it as identical to the Three Truthseither
while doing it or while wishing to do it. . . . At the same time, while enjoying myself
gnawing on someone elses liver, I can discern in this act also the infinite sorrow of
the victim, the rage of the authorities, my remorse in the electric chair, and my terror
at death, et cetera (p. 374).
I think we can trust our intuitions here: no, this will not do. Perhaps one confu-
sion here results from conflating delusion with evila confusion easier to notice
from outside the Buddhist tradition. What Ziporyn describes is a meditation practice
that can be valuable as a way to address many of our delusive thoughts and feelings,
but that is not a satisfactory way for serial killers to resolve their own peculiar prob-
lems, much less those of a Hitler or a fanatical terrorist hijacker. Mr. Hitler, you do
not need to discard your tendency to kill all Jews; rather, you should contemplate it
as identical with enlightened wisdom. . . . The evil that Zhili himself proposed to
commit was somewhat more modest: immolating himself to hasten his entry into the
Pure Landsomething that we may (or may not) agree would be an evilbut the
suffering that such a deed would voluntarily bring upon himself cannot be compared
with the suffering inflicted on innocents by torture or mass murder. One can argue
for the interdependence of good and evil by pointing out, for example, that the
antithetical duality between them sometimes contributes greatly to the worlds suf-
fering; Hitler and Stalin were trying to redeem the world by purifying it of its evil
elements. Zhilis point is that, given its position within an omnicentric holism, evil
nevertheless works to enlighten usbut that is not likely to be convincing to some-
one who lost his family in the Nazi Holocaust. Ziporyn repeatedly notes that the
setup of a joke must be serious for the punch line to be funny. What punch line
could redeem the Holocaust?
Ziporyns own example is fortuitous since the Pali Canon (Majjhima Nikaya
II.98 ff.) contains the story of Angulimala, a serial killer converted by the Buddha.
He tries to kill S

akyamuni but cannot run fast enough to catch him, even though
Book Reviews 101
the Buddha is walking at his usual pace. Astonished, he calls out Stop! I have
stopped, Angulimalayou stop too, responds the Buddha, who then explains: I
have stopped forever, abstaining from violence towards living beings; but you have
no restraint towards things that live. This impresses Angulimala so much that he
renounces his evil ways and asks to join the sangha, and the Buddha welcomes him
as a new bhikkhu. We are not told anything about his meditation practice (which
quickly leads to nirva n

a), but clearly it does not involve continuing his earlier prac-
tice of killing strangers to collect bones for a necklace. Myth or not, this story con-
tains nothing to support Zhilis position on how to deal with such evils, and much to
challenge it.
Yet none of this contradicts Ziporyns basic point about the paradoxes built
into omnicentric holism, the fact that from the highest point of view every possible
apprehensionincluding evil onesis neither a distortion of reality nor subject to
invalidation by some other more privileged perspective. The solution to this para-
dox, I suggest, involves realizing that this ultimate point of view is insufficient by
itselfthat it always needs to be supplemented by the provisional. We need only
to remember the original thrust of S

akyamunis teaching: ending dukkha was his

only concern. From the highest perspective, dukkha is ended by realizing that it has
always been su nya (Nagarjunas shorthand heuristic term for interdependent/lacking
self-being), as are sentient beings, delusion and enlightenment, good and evil, et
cetera. But that end to dukkha is not enough by itself. If it were, S

akyamuni would
not have bothered to teach after his awakening. We must also address the provi-
sional dukkha involving many types of physical and mental painwhich evil
increases. Moreover, these two approaches to dukkha reinforce each other. We
should not give a Dharma talk to someone who is starving, but focus first on repair-
ing that dukkha. The more enlightened we are, the less self-preoccupied we will be
and the more able to devote ourselves to redressing both aspects of dukkha in the
world.
Ziporyn says that for Zhili evil is not overcome in the sense of transforming into
something else; the deluded aspect is never lost because it unifies and redeems by
expanding to include other perspectives. From the highest perspective, again, no
such development is any improvement. As a lower truth, however, this captures
the transformation that is neededwithout in any way rationalizing a serial killers
tendencies to continue his killing. The important point is that some perspectives are
indeed more open, unifying, and encompassing than others; the classical Buddhist
example is the lives of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which are models for that reason.
Yet one does not become a Buddha by continuing to act on evil impulses with the
intention of contextualizing them. Rather, when such impulses arise in the mind
one lets them go.
In other words, the highest point of view is not really the highest point of view
at least, not by itself. It does not work for us without a lower truth according to
which we can distinguish between evil and good acts, between delusion (perceiving
Indras net as a collection of separate things) and wisdom (realizing nonself and the
interdependence of all the nets nodes). One needs the provisional positing of a
102 Philosophy East & West
distinction between good and evil in order to work for the reduction of the worlds
sufferinga dukkha that from the highest point of view is already complete and
perfect, lacking nothing. But that point of view is insufficient by itself. This is not
Nagarjunas perspectivethat the lower truth is needed to point to the higher truth.
Rather, each truth needs the other. To adopt an image that Ziporyn employs in a
somewhat different way, the relationship between them is like the two sides of a
Mobius strip. The two truths or levels of reality constitute one life. The lower truth
is interdependence, to be realized and integrated into the way we live. The higher
truth is the empty thusness of each phenomenon, a just this!-ness that inter-
dependence (paradoxically) implies.
Did Zhili in fact commit his great evil and immolate himself? I wont give away
the plotif only to encourage others to read this book. My critique does not convey
its riches (nor the denseness of its arguments). For example, Ziporyn almost casually
provides the most convincing explanation I have read for why the natural sciences
didnt develop in China: things were understood as social beings rather than
objects to be analyzed (pp. 4244). He notices that the Western tradition considers
value as another kind of fact, whereas the Chinese tradition subordinates fact to
value, so that the value theories we extract from Chinese texts are better understood
as evocations of affect meant to incline one towards a specific type of behavior
(p. 89). And (my favorite): The implication is perhaps that a sentient being is a
Buddha spending all his time trying to find his Buddha-nature (his true self, his true
value), whereas a Buddha is a sentient being who realizes that the apparent lack of
his buddhahood is the proof of his buddhahood and thereby goes about freely using
that buddhahood for the sake of all beings (p. 181).
To sum up, although I think Ziporyns main thesis is problematic, this is an im-
mensely stimulating work that deserves attention because it raises the important
issues in fruitful ways.
Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited. By Charles Taylor. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2002. Pp. 127.
Reviewed by Ralph Weber University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
In 1999, the Canadian philosopher and political scientist Charles Taylor delivered
the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh. He dedicated them to the question of
what it means to call our age secular. While preparing these lectures he engaged
with William James The Varieties of Religious Experiencewhich itself had been
based on the Gifford Lectures presented by James in 1901 and 1902. Taylor was
inspired by the continuing argumentative force and contemporary relevance of
James work and felt impelled to ask himself, in confrontation as well as conversation
with James, where the locus of religion is today. Taylors Varieties of Religion Today:
William James Revisited is the short yet very rich result.
In taking account of the complexity and richness of James book as well as of the
broad range of meaning that is covered by the term religion, Taylor is engaging in
Philosophy East & West Volume 54, Number 1 January 2004 103106 103
> 2004 by University of Hawaii Press