Fa-Tsang (643-712) was an important early figure in the development of Huayen Buddhism and is counted by the Third Patriach and first great systematizer of the school.

The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana is a classic of East Asian Buddhism. Its concept of faith, is not the same as that of Western religions. The book's title may also be translated as The Generating of Confidence in the Mahayana. Confidence and trust is generated as a result of examining the Mahayana Buddhist teachings, which are concisely summarized here. This book is said to have been written for those who find the wordiness of extensive discourse wearisome, and who prefer a brief tretise with a lot of meaning. Doctrinally, it presents the tathagata-garbha or Buddha-matrix teachings in their most developed form.

Comprehensive and coherent, this guide to a complex system of Buddhism is so authoritative that it has been employed in the instruction of Buddhist priests. Readers will find that it offers the keys to the essentials of Mahayana Buddhism, a liberal and theistic branch of the faith practiced chiefly in China and Japan. Translated by the distinguished scholar Teitaro Suzuki, the text discusses how humans can transcend their finite state to partake in the life of the infinite. Practices and techniques to assist believers in the awakening and growth of faith appear here, in addition to the most developed form of tathagata-garbha, or Buddha-matrix teachings. This accessible work was written specifically for those who prefer a brief and pithy presentation to extensive discourse.

These essays examine the significance of balance between the opposites in order to understand God and the world. The author argues that opposites-the subject and object, mind and nature, good and evil, truth and falsehood-are not separated from each other but interdependent in the relational paradigm. Each cannot exist without the other. Creative advancement is achieved by their dynamic tensions. The paradoxical relationship between the opposites is not posited in the mechanistic model in which opposites are recognized as separate entities and thereby antagonists; rather, they are dialectical and creative in the organic model. Based on this organic model, the relationship between God and the world is not hierarchical but interdependent. In the organic model, God is not described simply as a transcendent reality in a dualistic structure of God and the world. God reveals God-self in harmonious order and pattern as the ultimate principle formed in the world. In other words, God reveals God-self in the relative contexts of the opposites good and evil, true and false. Unlike Aristotle's Law of Contrast, God is both A (transcendent) and -A (immanent), which is the basic logic of the organic model. In this context, God is different from eternal reality such as Plato's Idea or the transcendent God developed in the Western tradition. In this text, the author explores how the complex of divine reality entails the dialogue of differences in a constructive way, using inter-religious dialogue and religion-nature dialogue as examples. The author also brings the theme of paradox into his discussion to connect the West with the East and explore how it can be a positive method of understanding God and the world in the organic model, which can in turn be a key to the understanding of the common good.

In Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye, Eyal Aviv offers an account of Ouyang Jingwu (1871-1943), a leading intellectual who revived the Buddhist scholastic movement during the early Republican period in China. Ouyang believed that authentic Indian Buddhism was an alternative to the prevalent Chinese Buddhist doctrines of his time. Aviv shows how Ouyang’s rhetoric of authenticity won the movement well-known admirers but also influential critics. This debate shaped modern intellectual history in China and has lost none of its relevancy today.