Yangming’s Poetry And Zen Buddhism

Wang Yangming’s attitudes towards Zen Buddhism vary from one stage to another. He was addicted to Zen Buddhism in his early years. Obviously, he was close to Buddhism at this stage. In his middle age, he was exiled to Guizhou. After enlightening in Long Chang, he expressed his great regret on having spending three decades on Buddhism and Taoism. In fact, Yangming’s love for Buddhism. Instead, it was more subtle than his early years. Yangming drew positive factors from Zen Buddhism to build up his own Philosophy of Mind. To avoid making enemies, Yangming made his fondness for Buddhism underlying. In Yangming’s later years, his Philosophy of Mind was more mature, at this time, and he was more deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism than ever before.Firstly, this paper briefly introduces the relationship between literary poetry and Zen Buddhism in middle and early period of Ming Dynasty, and analyzes the interactive activities between Yangming and Zen Buddhism in details, including traditional Buddhism in geography, the family background and his personal qualities on Zen Buddhism. Secondly, through the expression of language, the speculative skills and logical thinking, the relationship between Yangming and Zen Buddhism is analyzed in order to show Yangming’s absorption and utilization of Zen Buddhism on "Heart as Truth"、" Unity between Knowing and Practicing" and " Extension of Intuitive Knowledge".In addition, this paper conducts an in-depth interpretation on Yangming’s Buddhism poetry and its characteristics to reveal its implication of Zen Buddhism. Yangming cited not only the vocabulary of Buddhism and Zen Koan, but also skillfully exploited Buddhism Principles, and even blended together Confucianism and Buddhism, making the Philosophy of Mind and Buddhism work as a whole. Finally, through thoroughly analyzing Yangming’s poetry to demonstrate the aesthetic realm of Zen, including PratyakSa Imagery. Daily Life Imagery, Intuition Imagery and Interpenetration Imagery, the paper proves once again that Yangming was deeply influenced by Buddhism and Zen.