Virtue And Beauty

The entering of Buddhism into China brought new power into Chinesetraditional culture, at the same time enriching its content. Buddhism becameinterweaved with Chinese traditional cuIture of Taoism and Confucianism, fOrmingChinese unique Buddist theories, among which the Zen schoo1 is the mostrepresentative. The Zen thought directly referring Zen to life and basing Zen on lifeand human nature influenced the development of culture from ancient to moderntimes and became one part of Chinese traditional culture.This dissertation from the point of historical development couches upon theprofound and far-reaching innuences of Buddhism on chinese philosophy,literature, aesthetics and the cultural psychology of modern Chinese inteIligentsia.The confucianizing of Buddhism which embodies the fusion of Buddhism andChinese traditional phi1osophy is represented in the way of mentalizing andhumanizing, emphasizing realistic life as its most important focus. So, the fOrmationof Chinese Buddhist schools is the result of Buddhism absorbing Confucian andTaoist thoughts. The fOrmation and historica1 development of Chinese literary stylehave long and close relationship with Buddhism, producing new literary genres,new artistic conception and new aesthetic psychology. The de1icate speculativemethods and mental research into the cognitive movement of Buddhism open newfields for Chinese traditional aesthetics. It is very obvious that Buddhism hasconsiderable influence on the cultural psychology and the fOrmation of personality.The emphasis on the individual exercise of examing oneself, and meeting therequirement of self spiritUal development by means of Buddhist theories are themain motive for modem writers to study it. Many writers, therefOre, haveing closeconnections with Buddhist culture appear who are influenced by Buddhist culturenot only in their personality but a1so in writing spirit, artistic style, deep psychologyand the cognitive and thinking pattems.The tradition of believing in Buddhism has been existing fOr many years inTaiwan. The inheritage of traditional culture in Taiwan is more direct and obviousthan in Mainland. lmmersed in l. Earthly Buddhism" centering around Zen, a groupof writers majoring in w'riting Buddhist prose come into the literary circle. Most ofthem, whose literary w'orks obviously show the creating tendency to mix traditionalculture and Buddhist essence with realistic life, are deeply imbuned xvith the spiritof "Earthly Buddhism" and edified by rnodern Buddhist prose. The thought ofclearing mind and disclosing nature owned by Chinese Zen and the active spiritconcentrating on realistic life and pursuing the completeness of personalityinfluence these ''Titers considerably and profOundly. The} utilize prose --therather free genre --to express their understanding of realistic life and their learningexperience of Buddhist theories and regard them as writing themes. Combining theBuddhist scriptures and experiences of their own life into a whole becomes theimportant qua1ity of their Buddhist prose writing. They apply Buddhist theories toliterary emotional expression and description, interpret Buddhist theories and reflect life to reveal deep life philosophy graphically, leading readers up to live actively, to surpass themselves and to pursue progress. Their writing form a new beautiful scene in Taiwanese literary circle. This dissertation expounds writing features of this group and their prose essence, focusing on the contents and artistic styles of the writings of two representative writers, LinQingxuan and Fang Qi, providing a new angle of view to read and examine contemporary prose in Taiwan.