A Study on the Understanding of Taoism in Chinese Buddhism - Focused on Hong-ming-ji(弘明集)

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 53-82
Author(s):  
Jin Son
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Buddhism

Brook Ziporyn’s (Chinese) Buddhist Reading of Chinese Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-267
Author(s):  
Paul J. D'Ambrosio
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Chinese Buddhism ◽  
Classroom Discussions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
Tiantai Buddhism ◽  
Early Chinese Philosophy

This review article defends Brook Ziporyn against the charge, quite common in graduate classroom discussions, if not in print, that his readings of early Chinese philosophy are ‘overly Buddhist’. These readings are found in his three most recent books: Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought, Beyond Oneness and Difference: Li and Coherence in Chinese Buddhist Thought and Its Antecedents, and Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism. His readings are clearly Buddhist-influenced, but this is not in and of itself problematic. The core issue is rather to what degree these ‘Buddhist elements’ are actually already existent in, and have subsequently been carried over from, early Chinese thought in the development of Chinese Buddhism. Indeed, some scholars of Chinese Buddhism have pointed out that much of the vocabulary, concepts, and logic used in schools such as Tiantai may owe more to Daoist influences than to Buddhist ones. Accordingly, Ziporyn’s ‘overly Buddhist’ approach might simply be an avenue of interpretation that is actually quite in line with the thinking in the early texts themselves, albeit one that is less familiar (i.e. an early Chinese Buddhist or Ziporyn’s approach). The article also aims to show how Ziporyn’s theory concerning the importance of ‘coherence’ in early and later Chinese philosophy is also quite important in his above work on Tiantai Buddhism, Emptiness and Omnipresence. While in this work Ziporyn almost entirely abstains from using the language of coherence, much of it actually rests on a strong coherence-based foundation, thereby demonstrating not Ziporyn’s own prejudice, but rather the thoroughgoing importance and versatility of his arguments on coherence. Indeed, understanding the importance of coherence in his readings of Tiantai Buddhism (despite the fact that he does not explicitly use coherence-related vocabulary) only bolsters the defense against the claims that he makes ‘overly Buddhist’ readings of early Chinese philosophy.

Chinese Buddhism

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Edkins
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Buddhism

Philosophizing Chinese Buddhism as a Necessity

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-168
Author(s):  
Chung-Ying Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Buddhism

Indian and Ancient Chinese Buddhism: Institutions Analogous to the Jisa

1961 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-451
Author(s):  
André Bareau
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Buddhism ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Common Fund ◽  
Equivalent Expressions

The Tibetan term which is pronounced jisa and written spyi signifies literally terra commune or, like spyi, the principal or capital piece of land. The fact it is not to be found in the classical dictionaries of the Tibetan language, such as those of Sarat Chandra Das and Jäschke, seems to show that it is fairly recent. In these works the terms closest to it are spyi-tor and, better still, spyi-thog, which refer to a common fund or a common piece of property. These terms, too, appear to be relatively recent or at least exclusively Tibetan, for the dictionaries give no Sanskrit equivalent and they suggest that the terms belong solely to the dialects of Western Tibet. The Sanskrit terms corresponding to spyi would be sāmanyabhūmi and sādharanabhūmi in the first and most satisfactory sense, of common land, and agrabhūmi, murdhabhūmi and sirobhūmi in the second sense. But these do not occur in the dictionaries of classic Sanskrit, nor of Buddhist Sanskrit (Edgerton), nor of Pali. Nor were any equivalent expressions either developed in Chinese Buddhism or preserved through Chinese translations of Sanskrit terms. If any Indian or Chinese terms corresponding to the Tibetan spyi-sa existed, they obviously formed no part of the canonical or even of the paracanonical literary language of Indian or ancient Chinese Buddhism. It follows that if Indian or Chinese Buddhism had an institution resembling the Tibetan jisa, the Buddhist monks must have considered it to be foreign to their activities and in some way unworthy.

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