Buddhist Educational Thought And Its Contemporary Values

Education is related essential to the country's future development, the great revival of Chinese nation, and the welfare of the people. However there are some drawbacks in the contemporary education which puts that it puts too much emphasis on practical skills and mastering of knowledge and ignores the teaching of how to conduct oneself and how to know oneself. Buddhist education can make up for the deficiency of modern education. The educational ideology thinking of Buddhism is profound, and its purpose is the successful education of all sentient beings, starting in adult moral education, and completing in Buddhahood and Bodhisattvahood. Buddhist education can also improve physical and mental health, the ethical quality, and personality cultivation through specific practices.The main content of this paper is to further explore the Buddhist Educational thought by an analysis of the four basic classics of Mahayana Buddhism which are "Sutra of Forty-two Chapters", "Lankavatara-sutra", "Vajracchedika-sutra" and "Platform Sutra". Sutra of Forty-two Chapters is the first major Buddhist scripture that was introduced to China from India. This paper will discuss four aspects of its educational thoughts which are "promoting virtues and punishing evils", "diminishing desires and wants", "continuous efforts and perseverance", and "regulating physiology", in hopes that it can guide to the proper social life. When Zen Buddhism was first spread into China, the Lankavatara-sutra was its most important sutra. The sutra involves the outlook on life, cosmology, logic, language and debate, and many other fields, known as "Au Dian" (profound book). This paper only discusses "gradual practice and insight", "Panca-gotrani", "Zong tong and Shuo tong" and specific linguistics, which are combined with the concrete practices in order to be applied in learning and teaching. Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, immediately realized the truth when hearing the Vajracchedika-sutra. The paper extracts from the sutra four aspects that closely relate to our daily life to elaborate its educational thought, including. The far more unique educational thought in Platform Sutra is dissertated in this paper, with emphases on the philosophy of education, the way of enlightenment, practice and meditation.Another important part of this paper is to explore the contemporary values of Buddhist educational ideology, mainly dealing with the beginning of the contemporary Buddhist education, the social meaning of the Buddhist educational thought and its enlightenment on modern education. Moreover, this part covers a large area, of the society, and provides a wealth of intellectual resources for contemporary education. This paper aims to carry forward the fine traditional Chinese culture, and by extracting the educational ideology to analyze, in order to provide a comprehensive and brand new perspective to modern education, and solve the contemporary social problems, and promote the improvement and development of the educational system, and ultimately promote the harmonious society.