BUDDHIST ELEMENTS OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS TAOISM OF THE QUANZHEN SCHOOL (BASED ON LONG MEN XIN FA): PSYCHOLOGY AND SOMATOLOGY

The article deals with the analysis of anthropological concepts of one of the main schools of religious Taoism - Quanzhen / Longmen - in the aspect of identifying and considering the Buddhist elements of late Taoist anthropology. The main source for the analysis was the text of the 17th century Lun men xin fa (“The Law of the Heart-Consciousness [according to the Tradition] Longmen”), which outlined the views of Wang Changyue, master of the Taoist school Quanzhen / Longmen. The article examines the Buddhist elements of the late Taoist somatology and psychology: the concept of the heart-consciousness ( xin ), the concept of “vitality of wisdom” ( hui ming ), the doctrine of the “true spirit” ( zhen ling , yuan shen ). The central concept of the text - heart-consciousness - is interpreted by Wang Changyue to a large extent in a Buddhist way. Such concepts as the material body ( se shen ) and the Body of the Law ( fa shen ) are discussed in the text in the spirit of late Buddhist Mahayana psychology...

Buddhist Elements of the Anthropological Conceptions of the Religious Taoism of the Quanzhen School (Based on Long Men Xin Fa): Soteriology and the Concept of Human Activity

The article analyses anthropological ideas of one of the schools of religious Taoism – Quanzhen/ Longmen – in the aspect of identifying and considering the Buddhist elements of these ideas. For the school of Quanzhen, from the very moment of its appearance, there was a tendency toward religious syncretism/ synthesis, the desire to unite the principles and practice of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The main source for the analysis was the text of the 17th century Long men xin fa (“The Law of the HeartConsciousness [according to the Tradition] Longmen”), which outlined the views of Wang Changyue, master of the Taoist school Quanzhen/Longmen, and also included a number of basic texts of the Quanzhen school, which outline the views of the founder and masters of the school of the first generation. The article discusses the two components of the School’s anthropological representations in which Buddhist influence is most clearly manifested: soteriology and the concept of human activity. The Buddhist doctrine of “activity/action” (karma) was incorporated into the representation system of the Taoist school Quanzhen. The «soteriological» statements in the Quanzhen/Longmen texts also often include Buddhist expressions that function in the texts in parallel with typically Taoist formulations