Building Bridges Between Chan Buddhism and Confucianism

<p>In <i>Building Bridges between Chan Buddhism and Confucianism</i> Diana Arghirescu explores the close connections between Buddhism and Confucianism during China's Song period (960-1279). Drawing on<i> In Essays</i><i> </i><i>on Assisting the Teaching </i>written<i> </i>by Chan monk-scholar Qisong (1007-1072) Arghirescu examines the influences between the two traditions. In his writings Qisong made the first substantial efforts to compare the major dimensions of Confucian and Chan Buddhist thought from a philosophical view seeking to establish a meaningful and influential intellectual and ethical bridge between them.<br /><br />Arghirescu meticulously reveals a Confucianized dimension of Qisong's thought showing how he revisited and reinterpreted Confucian terminology in his special form of Chan aimed at his contemporary Confucian readers and auditors who do not know Buddhism. Qisong's form of eleventh-century Chan she argues is unique in its cohesive or nondual perspective on Chinese Buddhist Confucian and other philosophical traditions which considers all of them to be interdependent and to share a common root.<br /><br /><i>Building Bridges between Chan Buddhism and Confucianism </i>is the first book to<i> </i>identify examine and expand on a series of Confucian concepts and virtues that were specifically identified and discussed from a Buddhist perspective by a historical Buddhist writer. It represents a major contribution in the comparative understanding of both traditions.</p>