The Combination Of Tempers, Forests And The Buddhist Land

Modern scholars' studies on Zong Bing's thoughts are very much divided on account of the varied schools of Zong Bing's thoughts.In his "Preface to Shanshui Paintings", his eclecticism is evident. To prove the beauty of Nature, for instance, Zong Bing resorts to the poetry composed by the famous figures of Confucianism and Daoism as testimonies, which are analogous with the ways Dao disciplines appreciate the existence of Dao.In his preface, instead of borrowing linguistically and allusively from the genuine Buddhism documents, he exploits exclusively the traditional ancient documents, which further enhances people's argumentation on which school he should really belong to. In the preface, Zong Bing simultaneously puts forward two conceptions, purification of tastes and the joy of intelligence, to comment on the ways to appreciate and understand the marvel, joy and inspiration of the nature. The former conception, namely the purification of tastes, puts a focus on the efforts of the subject to purify his mind, getting rid of all irrelevant thoughts and vulgar preference, demanding his consciousness to be placed in a state of naturalness and emptiness. The latter conception is about the effort to make the objective items attached to and in keeping with the mundane ideas of the subjects, and becoming ultimately the symbols of morals. The former, is somehow very much like what Daoism preaches about how the flesh finally becomes the fairy or the Buddhism's new life after death, while the latter belongs to Confucius's morals pertaining the relationship between nature and moral. These conceptions and arguments seem superficially very contradictory, jumping from one preference to another, making it extremely difficult to decide which school Zhong Bin should really be put into. In my view, however, this is exactly a fact many scholars have failed to see, yet is at the same time too crucial to be overlooked completely. The fact is that in the period of time of the two Jin as well as the Northern and Southern Dynasty, in the course of the converging of Confucian and Buddhism, the subject became a thing without any limits. Zhong Bin lived exactly in such a peculiar period of history where Confucian and Buddhism became the common resources of various Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian metaphysicist. At the time, people were pragmatically-minded in that they did not confine themselves in the strict and distinct boundaries of certain schools. Instead, they would seek solutions to their problems in whatever fields of studies that might seem useful to them. Though there still existed certain arguments due to their different orientation of thoughts, they were more concerned with things like solutions or tactics while they paid less attention to the schools they were supposed to belong to. It is a fact very different from the argumentation that was common in the Early Qin period of time.Zong Bing's "Preface to the Paintings of Shanshui", which is said to be the earliest discussion of its kind discusses the aestheticism of Shanshui, but it does not stop there. As a Buddhist, his preface of course was substantially influenced by such Buddhist conceptions like "the ontology of mind and personality" and "the indestructibility of spirits". But the focus of the preface is, however, not the promotion of Buddhism. In it, there are lots of conceptions that are irrelevant with Buddhism, like "to see the surroundings as if you are in it", "to picture it according to the picture, to color it according to the color", "mountains and rivers preach through their beauty which delights the wise people". These conceptions do not simply imply that we should see the world from a Buddhist point of view, considering everything in nature as forms of emptiness. It is more correct to say that they praise humanity and that we should see the world around us with care and consideration according to Confucian. What Zhong Bin is trying to argue is his consideration of cultural values, which combine organically Confucian tradition, Daoist transcendence, metaphysicist innovation and the Buddhist emptiness. It also makes an aesthetical effort to explore the possible combination of tempers, forests and the Buddhist land, making them an aesthetical whole. Additionally, in the preface, Zhong Bin says: "I love Mountain Lu and Heng, and I also love the rivers in Jin and Wu. I feel regretful that I am not sufficiently cultivated to be a part of the school of Shimen, so I took to pictures to record the mountains." "Shimen" as he mentioned in the quotation is not explicitly located. To my understanding, it should come from a story in the Analects "Zilu spent the night at Shimen". Zilu is supposedly a disciple of Confucian. As Zhong Bin believes in Confucian, he considered himself "belonging to the school of Shimen". In a sad and self-guilty tone, he commented that since he was a disciple of Zilu, he should therefore be considered as a disciple of Confucian. And on account of such self-guiltiness, he took to pictures to record the mountains". What he wanted to say is that "although, Confucian, Laozi and Budda are different from each other, they share the similarity of being kind"Fundamentally, in the study of Zhong Bin's "Preface to Shanshui Painting", the focuses should be both his aesthetic idea and the contexts from which these ideas came into being, in the hope of understanding the root of his thoughts, their basic conceptions and what he suggests as the ideal cultural value. As to his school he is supposed to belong to, it seems very insignificant in that the thoughts of any one single school can hardly be considered as the ultimate truth about the whole world.The present thesis, making use of some of the systematicism's point of view, first of all makes an introduction of the fundamental ideas in "The Preface to the Paintings of Shanshui", and then discusses the factors that contributed to Zong Bing's thoughts in the contexts of the cultural and social background of the period of time when he lived, and tries to prove that his fundamental idea is the combination and fusion of Confucian, Daoism, Buddhism and Metaphysics. It is also about the effort to combine the tempers, forests and Buddhist land. Finally, the thesis makes an attempt to study the ideas in the preface in the context of the historically cultural and social background as a sub-branch of thoughts, supplemented with my own explanation of the texts, my discussion of his aesthetic ideas and the mention of his possible inspiration on the teaching of modern Shanshui painting.