An Analysis On The Transformation Of Cundi Dharma

In modern times, the whole Chinese society was experiencing enormouschanges. Buddhism, as a kind of ideology, was also facing a huge andserious challenge. The problem that whether it will reform itself tosurvive, or keep this dangerous condition undoubtedly becomes a tough taskto many people who are interested in the development of Buddhism from boththe inside and outside of this religion. Then, many men with insight brokethrough the shackles of the traditional system and began the arduous andlengthy revolution of Buddhism. Under the influence of this event, allkinds of movements are surging at the time, such as the Humanistic Buddhism,Koji Buddhism and Zen of lay Buddhist. They all provoked a tremendousresponse at that time. Some movements even still have influence so far.Esoteric Buddhism, as one branch of Buddhism, still attracts lots ofattention in this movement. For example, the return of eastern esotericBuddhism and the study of it in Tibet. What should be deliberated is thephenomenon that the esoteric Buddhism in Tang dynasty named Cundi is stillpopular in the local community after the disappearance for thousands ofyears and has a strong influence. This article talks about change of Cundiin modern society under the background of today’s movement of Buddhism.This article has three parts:The first part is the introduction that mainly introduces the reasonsfor choosing this topic, the content of the research, the method ofresearching, and the innovations with it. It also makes the summery andoverview of the existing research results and research status of Cundi.The second part is the main part of the paper with three chapters.The first chapter talks about the background of the change of Cundi inmodern society from the internal perspective of Buddhism. It points outthat the boom of the esoteric Buddhism is the external opportunity to the modern transformation and development of Cundi and the basis of existedbeliefs is the internal conditions. The second chapter describes thedevelopment of the theory and practice system of Cundi in contemporaryera. The paper uses two professionals of Buddhism called ShouYu andGaoQi--one is a Buddhist monk and another is a lay Buddhist--and theirtransformation of the theory and practice system of Cundi as clue. Alignwith the transformation of the entire Buddhism, it highlights the timesfeature of their reform for the Cundi’s trend of being Zen and modern.The third chapter discusses the controversial issue concerns with theconstruction of Cundi. This part firstly generalizes the attitudes andcontributions to Cundi of different kinds of persons such as LanJifu,NanHuaijin, Puguang, lay Buddhist Gaoqi and so on. Then it discusses theideaistic reasons for the construct of Cundi: Use Cundi’s idiosyncracyof respective aspects as the ethos of clann and make the idiosyncracy ofmystery and consummation to be the gist of it.The third part (chapter4) analyze the features and reasons ofCundi’s transformation in modern times. There are three points: theideology’s trend of being earthly, the Buddhism related to enterprisesand the modernization of the transmission and organization of Cundi. Allthese three points are closely related with the trend and development ofBuddhism in modern society, and clearly indicate the direction of thefuture development of Cundi meanwhile.