Ouyizhixu To Bring Together Ideas Of Research

Ou-Yi lived in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty. At that time, the politics was very dark, and the social order was in chaos. Under such circumstances, Buddhism was also affected deeply, and there were many problems in Buddhism internally, so the Buddhism showed a scene of decline.Facing these problems, Ou-Yi made a study of Zen, Vinaya and other schools, and he promoted the idea of combining various schools. Moreover, whatever he emphasized was to find the final dependent upon Pure Land thoughts. He hoped that his efforts could bring about the revival of Buddhism.This paper is divided into four chapters. The first chapter introduces the author and his works. The second chapter background of Ou-Yi, which consists of three areas: the political and economic of late-Ming Dynasty, Buddhist policy of Ming Dynasty, Buddhist issues. The reason we chose to make a study of these sections is that we want to recover by the way of historical reference the original condition of late Ming Dynasty. The third chapter discusses Ou-Yi's Vinaya thought, and his opinion about Tiantai Sect's thought and Pure Land's thought. In Ou-Yi's summarizing thought, Vinaya thought was a starting-point, and Tiantai Sect's thought was the foundation. However, he was converted to Pure Land's thought at last. The fourth chapter surveys Ou-Yi's thought of harmonization. In this section, the author trails Ou-Yi's efforts course: his reconciling Dharma-nature school's thought with Dharma-sign school's thought, mixing up the doctrine of Zen with the Tiantai doctrines, and so on. In his opinion, Ou-Yi thought that the relationship of Dharma-nature school and Dharma-sign school was one between waves and water and, the relationship of the Zen and Tiantai was similar to the relation of ropes and net. He also believed that the Zen, Vinaya and other schools' doctrines were all coming from Buddha's teachings, they were indivisible. Ou-Yi believed that the cultivator who converted to Buddhism must follow Pure Land way in addition to master Three Learnings in order to be reborn in pure land.