Paths of Practice with Brook Ziporyn, PhD

Brook Ziporyn is a scholar of ancient and medieval Chinese religion and philosophy at The University of Chicago Divinity School and College. Professor Ziporyn received his BA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, and his PhD from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the Divinity School faculty, he has taught Chinese philosophy and religion at the University of Michigan (Department of East Asian Literature and Cultures), Northwestern University (Department of Religion and Department of Philosophy), Harvard University (Department of East Asian Literature and Civilization) and the National University of Singapore (Department of Philosophy). He is the author and translator of several books including his latest work, Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in October of 2024. (A longer list of Ziporyn's work can be found towards the end of this description.)

Please see below for the link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article mentioned in this podcast episode here:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddhism-tiantai/

Please also see below for links to Ziporyn's book, Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond, as well as its online appendix (free):

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo230169826.html

https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/ziporyn/index.html

We discussed walking the mandalas of sacred Buddhist sites, approaching Buddhism as both a scholar and practitioner, Tiantai meditation techniques and broken teapots, Dogen and the connections between Tendai and Soto Zen, and the importance of finding the Buddhist path that best suits you.

Ziporyn is also the author of:

-Evil And/Or/As the Good: Omnicentric Holism, Intersubjectivity and Value Paradox in Tiantai Buddhist Thought (Brill, 2000)

-The Penumbra Unbound: The Neo-Taoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang (SUNY Press, 2003)

-Being and Ambiguity: Philosophical Experiments With Tiantai Buddhism (Open Court, 2004)

-Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett, 2009)

-Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought; Prolegomena to the Study of Li (SUNY Press, 2012)

-Beyond Oneness and Difference: Li and Coherence in Chinese Buddhist Thought and its Antecedents (SUNY Press, 2013)

-Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism (Indiana University Press, 2016)

-Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings (Translator, Hackett 2020)

-Daodejing (Translator, Liveright Books and the Norton Library 2022)