The Ideology Study Of Fusion Of Confucianism And Buddhism From The Four Book Of Oh Yi

Ouyizhixu, one of the four eminent monks in the later period of MingDynasty, was greatly edified and influenced by Science of Cheng and Zhufrom childhood and later turned into a Buddhist. Having devoted hislifetime to the renaissance of Buddhism and integration of the threereligions, he studied and practiced Buddhist doctrines unremittingly.Meanwhile, he strongly advocated the mergence of Confucianism andBuddhism. Ouyi’s Interpretation of the Four Books is a masterpiececoncerning the mergence of Confucian and Buddhism, which presents theachievements of Buddhism reconciling with the Confucianism in the lateMing Dynasty and reveals the maturing of Buddhism in dealing with theschools of two religions. In this work, Ouyi opposes Zhu Zixueintellectually by breaking the model of The Four Books. Besides, he makesan explanation of it by means of Buddhist doctrines so as to revitalizeBuddhism through the help of Confucian and make latter blend intoformer.This paper is based on the Ouyi’s Interpretation of the Four Books. Itdiscusses scholarly characteristics and connotation of the work bystudying the academic background and development of the ideology of thefusion of Confucian and Buddhism, and searches the value and influenceof the ideology as well.Social unrest and public panic between the Ming and Qing dynastiesmade Ouyi feel that he shouldered the dual mission of saving the worldand the religion. The reason why he commented the Four Books is henoticed the enormous impact of it among the official class. He wanted tosave the court by leading the Buddhism into Confucian, and makeConfucian do good to Buddhism. Based on this understanding, Ouyi’sexplanation method of the Four Books is quite different from thetraditional explanation method of Confucian classics. He used previouspeople’ words and Buddhism’s sayings as counsels. And he wasn’tconstrained by traditional explanation method. These made his workpresent a comment style and a colloquial language style.Ouyi’s basic stance of mergence of Confucianism and Buddhism viewed Confucianism as a Path of Buddhism entry. In the ease of "TheAnalects of Confucius", he used "Mind Theory" as the conjunction pointof mergence of Confucianism and Buddhism, stressing the importance of"thoughts unification" in persuading the souls of the masses and tamingthe mind’s in the turbulent days. Based on this and in Buddhism’s position,he explained the practical work of "learning to know","benevolence","filial piety", and "Forbearance" in Confucian. At the same time, Ouyitried to get a thorough knowledge of Confucianism and Buddhism in realmtheory. He thought that Confucianism and Buddhism had the same pursuitof the spiritual realm, using "have a common goal" to build a bridgebetween Confucianism and Buddhism in the realm of theory.It was a more obvious position of Buddhism explaining Confucianwhen Ouyi commented Doctrine of the Mean. He caught the skeleton ofDoctrine of the Mean and held the Buddhist Tiantai Sect ’Xingjushuo’ astheoretical basis. He explained ’mean’ as cultivating oneself doctrine,’Maintenance’ as cultivating oneself skill, and ’honest’ as fruition. Whenhe explained the Great learning, he still used the ’Mind Theory’ that heused ’Thoughts Unification’ to explain the Great learning,’ borncharacter’ to explain morals,’starting mastery’ to run through thenoumenon and the work. He successfully explained the abstract Buddhisttheory and reached the fundamental purpose of promoting the Buddhisttheory by explain the Great learning.As the representative work of Ouyi with regard to his thought aboutthe mergence of Confucian and Buddhism, Ouyi’s Interpretation of theFour Books was not taken seriously by traditional academia, nevertheless,it is of great importance from the view of "the mergence of Confucian andBuddhism" in the course of history. Ouyi’s assertion has made asignificant impact on later generations and a great contribution to bothBuddhism renaissance in the late Ming Dynasty and formation of modernBuddhism.