Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight: T’ien-t’ai Chih-i’s Mo-ho chih-kuan, 3-volume set

The Mo-ho chih-kuan(Great cessation-and-contemplation) by T’ien-t’ai Chih-i (538–597) is among the most influential treatises in the long history of Buddhist scholarship. It is known for its brilliant insights and its systematic and comprehensive treatment of the Buddhist tradition.Clear Serenity, Quiet Insightis the first complete, fully annotated translation of this prodigious work by one of today’s foremost scholars on T’ien-t’ai (Tendai) Buddhism.

The extensive annotation accompanying the translation (Volumes 1 and 2) will help readers understand the original text and implications of crucial passages and ideas, as well as the place theMo-ho chih-kuanoccupies in the development of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese Buddhism and its critical importance for figures such as Nichiren, who considered Chih-i the “great master” and quoted profusely from the text in his own writings. Volume 3 contains ample supplementary materials, including translations of related texts, a comprehensive glossary, and lists of Chinese terms and explanations of various sources.

Paul L. Swanson is a Permanent Research Fellow at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nanzan University.