  We report on the behavior of the eigenvalue distribution of the Dirac
operator in (2+1)-flavor QCD at finite temperature, using the HISQ action. We
calculate the eigenvalue density at several values of the temperature close to
the pseudocritical temperature. For this study we use gauge field
configurations generated on lattices of size $32^3 \times 8$ with two light
quark masses corresponding to pion masses of about 160 and 115 MeV. We find
that the eigenvalue density below $T_c$ receives large contributions from
near-zero modes which become smaller as the temperature increases or the light
quark mass decreases. Moreover we find no clear evidence for a gap in the
eigenvalue density up to 1.1$T_c$. We also analyze the eigenvalue density near
$T_c$ where it appears to show a power-law behavior consistent with what is
expected in the critical region near the second order chiral symmetry restoring
phase transition in the massless limit.
