The "three Religions In One" Mentality And Literature Of The Song Literati Presents

Buddhism began its continual localization in China since it was introduced into China, which was mainly shown as being inclined to Taoism and Confucianism.To sum up,the early theory of the agreement of the three religions mainly emphasized the function that all these three religions were beneficial to social cultivation,they all required their believers to achieve perfection in the same way and persuaded others to do so,but they had not substantially achieved the integration of the three religions.The separation and the fusion of the three religions meant that each of them developed its own system and assimilated the foreign religions based on themselves(mainly Buddhism and Taoism) to enrich and develop their thoughts.However,the three religions still existed in a state of involvement instead of integration.Since Song dynasty, the three religions of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism integrated,infiltrated and supplemented with each other out of the common needs of survival and development in the new social environment,so they had an organic integration at the level of ideology,and the pattern of the separation of the three religions had been gradually replaced by the three religions in one with the dominant role of Confucianism and the subsidiary role of Buddhism.Song studies were the product of the three religions' mutual excluding,conflicting,fighting and interacting,mutual influencing and infiltrating.Confucian scholars identified themselves as recovering orthodoxy and continually absorbed the philosophical theories of Buddhism and Taoism concerning universe and the nature of mind,therefore,they found a rather solid theoretical base of philosophy,which supplemented the lack in ontology and speculativity in the original Confucianism.The different life philosophies of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism supplemented each other,which could make the scholars boost their own coordination ability in different stages of life and living environment,convert their moods freely,so they could gain sufficient spiritual support and remain the optimal survival psychology.Confucianism advocated being active in the world,but it might sometimes encounter setback in reality,even difficult to realize.So the life ideal of evasive and emulating nature of Taoist school and Taoism could be a supplement,the obedience of nature advocated by them could become the important means of adjusting the mood states frequently.If one could neither be active in the world nor avoid nowadays,Buddhism could play a certain role.Especially in China,Zen Buddhism advocated following fate and fortune,not persisting in mind,which could provide spiritual comfort to those scholars who were in stress or whose desires could not be met,and could help those scholars live with aloofness and with the psychology of renouncing the world to resolve the contradictions between aloofness and worldliness.The trend of three religions in one in Song dynasty provided the scholars a basic ideological and cultural environment.The absorbing and integrating of different life philosophies of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism made scholars in Song dynasty form the mature and robust cultural characters.Compared with the previous dynasties(especially Tang dynasty),great changes had taken place in their ideological concept,living psychology and survival means.The thought of being active in the world of Confucianism made them participate in politics enthusiastically,while the thoughts of conforming to nature and attaching minor importance to remaining or leaving the present position of Taoism and the thoughts of pursuing freeing oneself from trouble of Buddhism made them handle the honor and disgrace,gains and losses in life with aloofness.They were not keen on riches,nor worried about poverty,burdening moral justice and being diligent in government affairs when they were officials,and they could be the first to show concern and the last to enjoy themselves;when they were dismissed from the government positions,they were not pleased by external gains,not saddened by personal losses;they could adapt themselves to circumstances instead of blaming the fate or other people when they were banished from the court.In the eyes of the scholars in Song dynasty,the social value and life meaning of the individuals were not conflicting,they could not only be realized through external achievements,but could be obtained from the congeniality,self-sufficiency and freedom in the spirits.It was based on this open-minded attitude toward life that the scholar-officials in Song dynasty were unlikely to worry about personal gains and losses just for the sake of bubble reputation and fly's-head profit.No matter whether they had a successful official career or not, they could be self-possessed with calm psychology as if a traveler traveled without caring the rain or shine.The influence that the mature and robust attitude of life of the scholars in Song dynasty had on generation literature was evident.As far as the expression theme of literature was concerned, the scholars in Song dynasty adopted a contingency strategy in renouncing the world and conducting in society,officialdom and reclusion-official reclusion such as under the influence of the thought of mid-reclusion put forward by Bal Juyi after integrating the three religions' life philosophy,so the theme of hermit's literature changed accordingly.Compared to the condition of Tang dynasty,the exilic theme of Song literature had fundamental difference.Its main tone was accommodation without depression,the reason was that the scholars could use the cultural spirit of Buddhism and Taoism to defuse depression;the theme of chanceless scholars widespread in Tang dynasty had greatly weakened in Song dynasty,which not only benefited from the basic national policy in politics and culture in Song dynasty,but also due to Song people's mature cultural quality making them adjusting their psychology to weaken the unsuccessful officialdom complex.But in Southern Song,the national conflicts were sharp and the resisting emotions were upsurging,the weakened emotion of unsuccessful officialdom inflamed again and converted into more depressed and solemn indignation,while the national situation with internal and external troubles and the scholars' dignified and introversive cultural character made the suffering theme(worries about country,people and society) more outstanding.