Chinese Buddhist Philosophy
Edited by Chien-hsing Ho (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
About this topic
Summary | Chinese Buddhist philosophy primarily results from traditional Chinese Buddhist thinkers’ efforts to inherit, reinterpret, and develop theories and thoughts in various Chinese translations of Indian Mahayana scriptures and treatises. Five Chinese Buddhist schools or traditions are of philosophical significance: the Three-Treatise school, the Consciousness-Only school, the Tiantai school, the Huayan school, and Chinese Zen (Chan) Buddhism. Among them, the Three-Treatise and Consciousness-Only schools are the Chinese descendants of, respectively, Indian Madhyamaka and Yogācāra; however, both have all but disappeared after the Tang dynasty (618−907). The other three schools, Tiantai, Huayan, and Zen/Chan, are indigenous and can be seen as philosophically the most representative traditions of Chinese Buddhism. Considerably owing to the influence of Chinese thought and culture, Chinese Buddhist way of thinking is fundamentally nondualistic in character, emphasizing, more than Indian Mahayana does, the mutual sameness and interpenetration of the ultimate and the conventional. The thinking tends to be somewhat nondiscursive, involving holistic views expressed in paradoxical language, with particular concern on the practical. Meanwhile, Tathāgatagarbha thought receives much attention among Chinese Buddhist thinkers, and the widespread conviction is that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature and can attain Buddhahood. |
Key works | Refer to the subcategories. |
Introductions | Lai 2008 discusses the history of Chinese Buddhist thought up to the Tang dynasty. Inada 1997 comments on the Chinese reception of Buddhism. Liu 1985 and Liu 1989 elucidate the notion of Buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism. |
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Subcategories:
Chinese Zen Buddhism (144)
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The Three-Treatise School of Chinese Buddhism
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General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Lynne Tirrell Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |