Research On Zongyuan Liu And Buddhism

Influenced by the whole Tang dynesty where Buddhism was attached great importance to and his own living environment, Liu Zongyuan made Buddhism his only belief throughout his life. Tang dynesty was at the height of power and splendors during the entire Chinese feudal society and was a period of great prosperity of Buddhism as well. All believed in Buddhism, including the emperor, generals, ministers and the common people. There are also many relatives and friends around Liu Zongyuan who considered Buddhism as their belief . Living in a society full of Buddhism atmosphere, Liu Zongyuan was deeply affected by Buddhism culture from the very beginning of his childhood. After the failure of"Yongzhen Innovation", Liu Zongyuan suffered a setback in his official career and was demoted to the southern wilderness. Politically he was striken heavily, and therefore he was extremely depressed. In order to relax himself, Mr. Liu indulged himself with Buddhism. Mr. Liu lived in the Longxing Temple in Yongzhou at the beginning of his demotion to Yongzhou. Throwing himeself into a temple full of Buddhism atmosphere and living with monks for long in a period when Buddhism had been Sinicized made Liu Zongyuan gradually recognize and accept Buddhism.During his demotion to Yongzhou, Liu Zongyuan had nothing to do but devote himself to the study of Buddhism. His achieved great accomplishments at that time. Meanwhile, he accomplished a great number of superior literary works, some of which were obscure in meaning due to advocating Buddhism directly; while others were much interesting thanks to its contents which concerns Buddhism. The poems, fables, travels , essays of Liu Zongyuan were all greatly influenced by Buddhism. His poems were profound because of the Buddhism they contained. Referred to Buddhism, his fables became mature from contents to forms, which also means the maturation of Chinese fables. One of his essays,《Yongzhoubaji》, didn't talk about Buddhism directly, however, it showed Buddhism potentially. That is to say, Buddhism contributed a lot to Liu's works and his state of mind. Liu's thoughts that we should combine Confucianism with Buddhism advocated deriving quintessence of Buddhism and abandoning the dross. He insisted on deriving the combination Confucianism with Buddhism and abandoning the dross which would do harm to society. He believed in that way the whole society could benefit a lot. Liu's thoughts that we should combine Confucianism with Buddhism inherited the past and forged ahead into the future, which inherited the thoughts of our ancestors and enhanced the spirits of the epoch. In the meantime, idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming Dynasties was also initiated by the thoughts. Based on the syncretizing of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism of former dynesties, the idealist philosophy was developing mainly from Confucianism and from assimilating Buddhism and Daoism as well. We can benefit much from the combination of Confucianism with Buddhism because it treated foreign religious culture appropriately. Today, we can also regard the thoughts as a reference when formulating religious cultural policy and building socialistic harmonious culture.