Patty Lee, "buddhism Into Confucianism" Moral Cultivation Concept Study

LI-ao is the first one to inherit pre-Qin Confucianism and affect Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties. He lived in the mid-tang, which was on the decline. At that time, Buddhism and Taoism especially Buddhism seriously threatened Confucianism. Li-ao regarded himself as the heir of Confucian Orthodoxy. He discerned to exclude Buddhism and wrote in order to revive the human nature of Confucianism. The theory of "good nature and complex emotion" is the theory of human nature basics of Li-ao's theory on moral cultivation. He emphasized "emotion", which was the feature of his human nature theory. And he assimilated theoretical achievements of times so that he introduced Buddhism into Confucianism. Li-ao's theory of human nature has an important significance in the development history of Confucianism. He set up good and evil as double origins firstly on the subject. The Song Neo-Confucianism divided nature into good nature of temperament and complex nature of Heaven and Earth, which made Li-ao's human nature theory more perfect. He designed methods of "eliminating emotions to return nature", which can lead to moral state of pure nature. Li-ao's theory of moral cultivation is not pure Confucianism. To a certain degree, he admitted some ideas from Chan Buddhism and Tiantai Sect. Li-ao integrated Buddhism and Taoism especially Buddhism to develop traditional classics on the meaning of "Introducing Buddhism into Confucianism". He made the theory of human nature and moral cultivation better, which influenced Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties. The Song Neo-Confucianism assimilated ideas of Buddhism and Taoism and developed perfect moral cultivation of Confucianism and formed more complete and intricate methods and state.