Assisting Buddhism Into Medicine:Research On Yu Jiayan’s Medical Thought

China has a long and profound history of medicine.The theory and thought of Chinese medicine originated from the medical practice in ancient China,and in the historical development process,it successively integrated Confucianism,Buddhism,Taoism and other ideological resources.Yu Jiayan was one of the three masters of medicine in the early Qing Dynasty.Due to the late Ming dynasty and early Qing Dynasty,Yu took the road of “Zen from Confucianism,and medicine from Zen”.On the basis of his predecessors,he further integrated Buddhist thoughts into medicine and pushed Chinese medicine to a new height.Yu’s measures and thoughts of“invoking Buddhism into medicine”are mainly reflected in two aspects: Firstly,paying attention to the increasing trend of mental diseases and applying Buddhist meditation resources for treatment;Secondly,aiming at the disorder of medical treatment and the corruption of medical ethics,we should draw lessons from Buddhist precepts to standardize medical ethics.This paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is the introduction.The second chapter analyzes the relationship between Confucianism,Buddhism,Taoism and the development of Chinese medicine,which is the origin of Yu’s medical thought of “invoking Buddhism into medicine”.The third chapter is the social background and personal experience of Yu Jiayan.At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty,the situation was turbulent,and a large number of scholars devoted themselves to medicine because of their hopeless career.Yu was one of the representatives of the trend of “Confucian scholars turning to medicine”.However,what makes Yu unusual is that he has been immersed in Buddhism.The fourth chapter focuses on the treatment of mental diseases(emotional diseases)by invoking Zen.Traditional Chinese medicine,Buddhism and Taoism have their own treatment methods for mental diseases.Yu believed that mental diseases are heart diseases and advocated Zen’s meditation to treat them.Chapter five focuses on Yu’s medical ethics.At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty,the society was in chaos and the medical level of many doctors was uneven.In this regard,Yu combined his own experience to standardize medical ethics with Buddhist discipline;and formed his own unique medical ethics theory.His Medical Law was highly praised by later generations.Yu’s“medical aid to Buddhism”greatly enriched the connotation of Chinese medicine and made great achievements.These achievements can be regarded as Yu’s medical response to the society in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties,which still has positive significance and reference value for the treatment of mental diseases,medical ethics and doctor-patient relationship in today’s society.