The Comparison About Buddhism And Confucian Of Tang Jun Yi

From Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, the comparisons between Buddhism and Confucianism had become not only an important topic which was talked about repeatedly in the long course of the history of Chinese philosophy, but a cultural phenomenon. Tang Junyi, as a representative of the new Confucianism, paid considerable attention to this problem. His early works Three Books of Life, Cultural Awareness and Moral Reason, The Introduction of Philosophy and some other books have slightly mentioned about this issue. The great book of his old age that The Existence of Life and the Spiritual Realm specifically summaries Buddhism and Confucianism with two chapters.In Mr Tang Junyi’s thought system, heart, state and the mutual relationship are the foundation of all thoughts. However, as a part of the whole thought system, the comparisons between Buddhism and Confucianism does not exist out of the foundation. Heart is the most critical factor for all understandings and the formation of all thoughts; and the feel of heart to external objects is another necessary factor. No matter Confucianism or Buddhism, it is a state presented though the feel of heart to the external objects. Only being put in the big framework of the relationship between heart and state can the discussion about the comparisons between Confucianism and Buddhism be continued. In addition, the religiousness of Buddhism is also a sufficient condition to the comparisons between Confucianism and Buddhism.Under the above background, this article will be divided into four closely linked parts to explore the focus-the comparisons between Confucianism and Buddhism. First of all, the outlook on life of two kinds of thought systems, this is the most intuitive and most fundamental distinction. The two distinct doctrines result from the fundamental difference of values of life. The outlook on life of Buddhism is pessimistic, while that of Confucianism is optimistic. Secondly, the difference of fundamental values of life decides that the starting points of Buddhism and Confucianism are utterly different. Buddhism starts from the pessimistic outlook on life to find the source which is egos, thus decides that the starting point of Buddhism lies in "breaking the universal rules"; while the source of optimistic outlook on life of Confucianism lies in the Virtue Doctrine which is the mainstream theory of Chinese philosophy on the theory of human nature. Thirdly, in methods of the learning, the Buddhism and Confucianism also take two different ways. The Buddhism chooses to break the universal rule by over reviewing of all rules in the world, which is also methodology of the viewing all methods. On the contrary, the Confucianism chooses to solve all problems one by one during the course of the development of people’s minds, and enriches the theory by developing. At last, in aspect of the expectation, the Buddhism and Confucianism share some similarities, though, they also, to some extent, differ from each other. As for the Buddhism, it puts emphasis on people’s minds and states that to a state of "nirvana rebirth"; while the Confucianism inclines to the metaphysics by taking advantage of the morals so as to a state that the Saint owns morals.By comparing and summarizing of Confucianism and Buddhism, at last, Tang Junyi prefers to the Confucianism by integrating the Buddhism. He made a further supplement for the Confucianism theory system on the basis of critical absorption in Buddhist theory, in which can be seen from his choices in Confucian theory and integrating the Buddhism as well as his minds diverging into several states.To cope with his specific cultural environment, Tang Junyi has given an objective answer under new development in the conflicts between Chinese and western culture, and what is more, his statement about the minds of metaphysics breaks the mysterious of the temperament and noumenon that inherited from Confucianism school of idealist philosophy of the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. Nevertheless, there is still a serious problem in the statement that whether theories, including culture saving the nation and the generic moralism, can be suitable with the current world? The thesis attitude is negative. As a matter of fact, the thesis believes that, faced with diversified and complicated situations in current social development, ecological philosophy, by integrating cultural ecology and economical ecology as well as political ecology as an organic integrity, is more suitable in current diversified society.