"religious Life" And "living Religion"

Any religion is rooted in the real life and exists for the people's actual needs. Ancient Judaism (including Biblical Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism during the Talmud Period) and Chan Buddhism (mainly referred to the Southern sect) are two models of the integration of religion and actual everyday life. Ancient Judaism applies itself to the daily life and becomes a special mode of Jews' life. It makes Jewish people live by the Law from God and act on Judaism in everyday life. In this way, Ancient Judaism closely combines life and religion. But Chan Buddhism emphasizes the self-examination of one's nature and attains a kind of non-intentional mind. It encourages people to apply the mind or pure soul to the everyday life and use the daily life as the place to practice Buddhism. Chan Buddhism lets people keep their mind on the present real life and obtain their freedom through inaction. So Chan Buddhism also embodies the character of 'practicing Buddhism in everyday life and living by practicing Buddhism'. That is to say, like Ancient Judaism, Chan Buddhism also integrates life and religion.There are still some big differences between Ancient Judaism and Chan Buddhism during their processes of handling the relationship between life and religion. We can say that they walk in the opposite directions and lead to the contrary religious ends. This paper compares Ancient Judaism and Chan Buddhism in three aspects, i.e. (1) the theoretical basis on which they combine themselves with everyday life, (2) the methods by which they combine the two, and (3) the religious ends they pursuing.Thus, this paper includes four parts. The first part discusses the comparison between the different theoretical bases that Ancient Judaism and Chan Buddhism respectively integrate themselves with everyday life. It is because of the special idea of God that Ancient Judaism can closely combine itself with the Jewish people's life. The sole and supreme God is the resource of Jewish people's religious belief and daily life.