Void Yogacara Thought

As a famous Buddhism reformer and scholar and thinker, Master Taixu developed the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism and made a great contribution to the progress of the modem Chinese Buddhism. He dedicated himself to the reform movement of Chinese Buddhism, expounded and propagated Buddhism doctrine ,set up new type of monk education and participated in debates of the academic circle. His thoughts of Buddhism was rich and many-sided.This paper mainly inquires into his thought of consciousness-only.The Buddhist philosopher of modern China discussed mainly the consciousness-only philosophy. Three institutes, which were Zhi na nei xue yuan (China Buddhism College) headed by Ouyang jingwu, Wuchang Buddhism College headed by Taixu and Three-periods Society headed by Han qingjing, made great achievements in reaserch of consciousness-only philosophy. Taixu's school shared something in common with other schools in value, reaserch method and the construction of Buddha dharma system, but also had obvious charicteritcs of its own in those aspects. Taixu's thought of consciousness-only philosophy was "new" and "comprehensive understanding". "New" has the following meanings: (1) the new interpretation of thoughts of traditional consciousness-only philosophy; (2) the new development of the social functions of consciousness-only philosophy; (3) the explanation of modern culture by the consciousness-only theory. "Comprehensive understanding " means that he not only melted consciousness-only school (weishi zong) with other schools of Mahayana Buddhism and emphasized the equality between consciousness-only school and other schools, but also explaned and riched the doctrine of other schools by the theory of consciousness-only philosophy.This paper holds that Taixu's thought of consciousness-only philosophy had three aspects: "comprehensive thought of consciousness-only philosophy", "new theory of consciouness-only philosophy" and "applied theory of consciousness-only philosophy". "Comprehensive thought of consciousness-only philosophy " melted the consciousness-only thought with other schools of Mahayana Buddhism , which involved the problem of teaching classification, Lengyan Sutra, Mahayanashraddhotpadashastra, and dharma character. Taixu constructed a Mahayana Buddhism system which was formed of Tiantai school , Xianshou school, Three Theses school, Consciousness-only school, Zen school, Pure land school, Esoteric school and Discipline school or of dharma nature emptiness wisdom school, dharma character consciousness-only school and dharma realm completeness enlightenment school. In this system, he reasonably arranged the satus of consciousness-only philosophy, explained Lengyanjing ('Suuramgama sutra) and Qixinlun (The Awakening of Mahayana Faith) with the theory of consciousness-only philosophy and cleared up the contradiction between the theory of consciousness-only philosophy and the theory of Qixin and Lengyan. He resolutely opposed Ouyang jingwu's dividing of Dharma Character School and Consciousness-only School and insisted that consciousness-only is the principal aim of dharma character."New theory of consciousness-only philosophy" was the new interpretation of consciousness-only philosophy by Taixu with modem words. First, on the basis of criticism of all ideolism and materialism , Taixu interpretated the Vidyyamatrasiddhi tridasakarika sastra. Second, Taixu expounded the basic problem of consciousness-only philosophy, which were Unreality and reality, Attributes and Essence, Self change and Co-change, Self and Others, Mind and object, Cause and Effect, Existence and Extinction, Same and Difference, Life and Death, Emptiness and Being,Reality and Phantom, Secular and Saint, Cultivation and Enlightment. Third, Taixu established a philosophical system of Buddha realism which was based on Lankavatara Sutra Theory and systematically illustrated the way of grasping the "true reality" from the viewpoint of ontology and methodology."Applied theory of consciousness-only philosophy " was the embodiment of the "to...