Study Of The Vimalak?rti Nirdewa Sutra From Conceptual Blending Theory

The Vimalakirti Nirdewa Sutra is one of the most popular sutra in Mahayana Buddhism. The Sutra shows an incredible self-consistent Buddhist cosmology. "The surface of the entire billion-world galaxy was reflected in the interior of the great precious canopy, where the total content of this galaxy could be seen." This part of sutra depicts the Buddha-field of Sakyamuni. How is this incredible Buddha-field constructed in our mind? The gist in The Vimalakirti Nirdewa Sutra is quite different from Hinayana Buddhism. "The Buddha-field is pure only to the extent that the mind of the bodhisattva is pure"; "Cultivating according to religious doctrines in earthly world" and "The nonduality between grasping and nongrasping, self and selflessness" are three main ideas which feature The Vimalakirti Nirdewa Sutra. How could we understand the unification of common people and Buddha? Conceptual blending theory is widely utilized to explain metaphoric phenomena, with the belief that metaphoric blending involves partial projections connections between two or more spaces just the same as other conceptual blending phenomena. Could it also be applied to explain the metaphoric phenomena in Buddhist sutra?Present The Vimalakirti Nirdewa Sutra study centers around its philosophical meaning, literature connotation and the text or its translation. This paper adopted the conceptual bending theory to add a new dimension to The Vimalakirti Nirdewa Sutra study from a cognitive approach, focusing on the dynamic process we construct the Buddha-field in mind and thus making the "inconceivable" conceivable. This paper holds a non-religious stand to study the religious representation of the physical world. The study centers around three perspectives:1.Buddhist Cosmology; As Johan. F. Hoorn, put it, "The physical world, then, is the outside together with that part of the inside world that is material and concrete. The abstraction and the thought about abstractions are the non-physical mental aspects." The Buddha-field constructed here is mental representation of the outside physical world abstracted by perceptual and conceptual processing. Therefore, for people with Buddhist belief the Buddhist cosmology is real. People with no religious faith may doubt its existence.2.The Conversion between Buddha-field and Earthly Universe; This sutra creates the image of Vimalakirti, which is a unification of ordinary living being and Buddha to propagate humanistic Buddhism. How could an individual to be simultaneously a Buddha and an ordinary living being? There is definitely pragmatic incongruity in the blend. Blending theory provided us the theoretical frame to illustrate this incongruity.3. Metaphoric Blending in The Licchavi Vimalakirti Sultra. Loads of expressions in Buddhist sutra have their unique religious connotation, like "entering the Dharma door of nonduality" and "comings and goings". The dharma door of "non-duality" refers to, according to the note of The Modern Translation of Licchavi Vimalakirti Sultra, the holy way towards ultimate liberation. "Nonduality" connotes supreme and ultimate and "the dharma door" means the holy road leading to sacred field. "Comings and goings" or "migrations" is not merely "shifting of space from point A to point B" within the domain of "space". The phrase refers to "reincarnation" in this sutra, namely the circle of rebirth. In these cases, conceptual blending theory also shows its strong explanatory power.