Research On The Buddhist Thought Of Monk Tue Trung

Monk Tue Trung(1230-1291)was a distinguished poet,statesman,and military strategist of the Chen Dynasty in Vietnam,as well as a Buddhist thinker who was highly accomplished in Buddhism.As a layman,he gradually integrated the three Buddhist schools of Viet Nam,the three ancient Buddhist schools of Vinītaruci,Wuyantong,and Caotang to conform to the social background of Vietnam at the time and developed them into the only Bamboo Forest Zen school in Vietnam.Monk Tue Trung was a key figure in the process of establishing the sect of the Bamboo Forest Zen School of the Chen Dynasty in Vietnam.Although many scholars at home and abroad have studied the poems and thoughts of Monk Tue Trung,they did not conduct the research in a systematic and comprehensive way.This paper intends to take the republished version of "Quotations of Monk Tue Trung" in the 24th year(1763)of Jingxing of the Sau trieu dai Li as the text object.After a brief summary of the life,writings and the ideological origin of the Monk Tue Trung,the paper provides a comprehensive and in-depth research on the Buddhist thought of the Monk Tue Trung from the angle of theory and practice.In terms of theory,the paper mainly expounds the four key propositions of Monk Tue Trung’s "Essence of Mind","Prajna","Language" and "Liberation",and analyzes his idea of "Essence of Mind" with the main characteristic of "The spiritual mind is Buddha,Buddha is the spiritual mind" from three perspectives:Essence,Form and Function.Then The paper further explores his Prajna thought of "Dharma realm is fully inclusive if let go of discrimination",the language thought of "Locate the moon by pointing the finger,and ignore the finger after seeing the moon",and liberation thought of "Hiding one’s merits and drift with the current",so as to sort out and summarize its ideological characteristics and theoretical significance.The paper attempts to fully present the overall appearance of his Buddhist thought through detailed analysis and development.It is believed that Monk Tue Trung has reached the ultimate attainment on abovementioned four aspects that feature a high theoretical system and a strong practicality.Its ideological characteristics lie in the integration of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,the integration of the three sects of Zen,Pure Land and Esoteric Buddhism,and the integration of the mundane world and beyond the world.In terms of practice,Monk Tue Trung integrated Buddhism,politics,and military,and applied Buddhist thought to daily life to serve the country and the people.The ultimate purpose of happiness is to give full play to the spirit of practising Buddhism in secular life and the tradition of patriotism and love for the people,to promote the development of culture,to inherit the Buddhist thought of more than 2,000 years,and to make the relationship between Buddhism and the nation increasingly harmonious and enduring.The Buddhist thought of Monk Tue Trung is not only a compass for Vietnamese Buddhist monks and nuns and followers of Buddhism,but also has a lot of inspiration for the theory and practice of Vietnamese Buddhism in later generations.The paper believes that the Buddhist thought of Monk Tue Trung has an important historical position in the history of Vietnamese Buddhism,and has played an active role in the process of the transformation of Vietnamese Buddhist thought.The main innovations of this paper are as follows.First,this paper used both the historical and logical methods,studies the Buddhist thought of Monk Tue Trung his role in the evolutional Buddhist history of Vietnam based on the literature investigation of Monk Tue Trung’s Quotations.In this way,we determined the historical status of Monk Tue Trung’s thoughts between the Vo Ngon Thong Zen Schooland the Truc Lam Zen School;It also makes a horizontal comparison between Monk Tue Trung’s and other Buddhists’ thoughts and views,so as to highlight the theoretical value of his Buddhist thought in response to the needs of practice at that time.Second,combined the methods of logical analysis and philosophical interpretation,this paper systematically analyzes the theoretical levels and interior relationship of Monk Tue Trung’s Buddhist thought.It is believed that Monk Tue Trung’s philosophical thought can be shown as four key propositions:"mind body","Praj?ā","language" and "liberation".Through the analysis and explanation of Monk Tue Trung’s Buddhist thought in the four aspects,we can grasp the overall appearance of his Buddhist thought more accurately.The last is to conduct a comprehensive study on the combination of Monk Tue Trung ’s Buddhist thought and his life practice.There is no doubt that his integration of Buddhist theory with the worldly and unworldly practical life had a far-reaching impact on both Vietnam’s social politics and Buddhism at that time.