论儒家忠孝的统一与冲突

忠与孝是儒家伦理的重要道德规范.忠与孝的实践精神、内在动机和实践行为具有统一性,在实践上表现为忠孝两全、忠孝并序、以忠全孝.但是,两者在道德价值选择中却又具有冲突性,主要表现为舍忠取孝、重孝轻忠、舍孝全忠、重忠轻孝.忠与孝的统一与冲突体现了儒家道德理性精神的自觉,也是儒家伦理智慧的重要表现.     

从魏晋南北朝时期“沙门不敬王者”的争论看佛教的中国化

本文在对魏晋南北朝中国社会政治背景的分析后,论证佛教借助儒家的忠孝仁义等思想,改变了佛教超脱政治的倾向,为现实的王道政治服务,才获得了迅速的发展。这实质上是佛教的中国化。     

从魏晋南北朝时“沙门不敬王者”的争论看佛教的中国化

本文在对魏晋南北朝中国社会政治背景的分析后,论证佛教借助儒家的忠孝仁义等思想,改变了佛教超脱政治的倾向,为现实的王道政治服务,才获得了迅速的发展。这实质上是佛教的中国化。     

论中国佛学的精神及其现实意义

中国佛学的精神是在佛教中国化过程中形成的,是外来佛教与儒道为主要代表的中国传统思想文化碰撞、冲突、交流、融合的产物,中国传统的儒道思想文化在中国佛学精神形成过程中发挥了重要作用。中国佛学的圆融精神、伦理精神、人文精神是中国佛学精神的主要方面。圆融精神是佛教调和其内部思想学说及其与中国传统思想文化关系的产物,对不同思想学说的调和、包容和融合态度以及圆融性的理论是其基本内涵;伦理精神融合吸收了与中国传统宗法社会相适应的儒家世俗伦理,具有宗教伦理与世俗伦理相结合的特征;人文精神融合吸收了中国传统文化关注现实社会人生的精神特质,从而使出世的宗教融入了更多的关注现实人心、人生、人间的思想内容。中国佛学的精神对于今天不同文化之间的交流融合、当代社会的道德伦理建设、佛教适应社会主义社会以更好地发挥自身的积极作用等均具有现实意义。     

关于佛教慈善的若干思考

佛教是一个特别讲因果、重伦理、修慈悲、非暴力、求出世解脱的宗教。她传入中国两千多年来,与以重伦理、尚仁义、讲忠孝、谋三立(立德立名立功)的儒家和重修身养性、讲自然和谐的道家     

中国中古文殊信仰传播探析

<正>众所周知,在大乘佛教的众多菩萨中,文殊菩萨是智慧圆满的化身,体现了大乘佛教为求得“解脱”而对宇宙、人生的一种思考。但是在早期佛教经典中,不论文殊菩萨在宣说第一义谛时所表现出的“宁入地狱,但说深法”的特点,还是仗剑逼佛、杀父度人的行为都与中国古代儒家所宣扬的循循善诱的思想及重视忠孝伦理的观念有着很大的差异。那么这个与中国传统思想文化似难融洽的菩萨形象是如何完全融入中国传统文化中的？期间经历过怎样的发展、演变？     

道教修道生活的忠与孝——以初唐"致拜君亲"论争为中心

自六朝以来,忠孝君亲的儒家伦理早已在道教教义与修道生活中得到内化的融合与体现.初唐政府屡次命令道士僧尼致拜父母与君王的诏令,都将道士女冠与僧尼相提并论,强令二教必须礼拜父母与君王.佛教教团为此多次掀起反对致拜君亲的请愿运动,成功地迫使政府两次放弃强令僧尼拜君亲;道团态度相对沉默,却在修道生活中实践着朝廷的政策精神.道教在致拜君亲问题上的"讷于言而敏于行",反映了道教在唐代不辩自明的国家宗教之身份认同.     

中国古代商人伦理精神刍议

1.中国古代商人伦理精神的形成。中国古代商人伦理精神是指中国古代商人在处理同国家、社会、同行、他人关系时表现出来的伦理道德精神。这种伦理精神的来源:(1)中国传统文化的影响。中国传统文化是以伦理、政治为核心的,在它的影响下,人们的一切事实判断活动都被纳入伦理道德模式中。(2)儒家义利观的影响。儒家在义利关系中一贯积极地追求义。(3)商人阶层的壮大。商人队伍的壮大是随着商业的发展而发展起     

从《群书治要》治道思想论儒家圣贤政治体系

《群书治要》是中国传统政治思想的精粹集成,其中贯穿着中国传统的"治道"思想,体现了儒家圣贤政治的逻辑规律.本文在研究中国传统"治道"双重含义的基础上,将儒家政治的特征概括为圣贤政治,并提出儒家圣贤政治的逻辑体系是以道为体,以仁政为相,以"修身为本","教学为先","爱民而安""好士而荣"为径,以"明明德、亲民、止于至善...     

佛教伦理中国化的方式与特色

佛教伦理中国化的方式与特色方立天长期以来,中国封建社会在经济上是以分散的小农自然经济为基本形态,在政治上是中央高度集权的专制主义国家,在人伦上盛行以血缘关系为纽带,以突出嫡庶之分和长幼之序为特征的宗法制度。与这种封建社会相适应,儒家的君臣、父子、夫妇、兄弟、朋友等纲常名教,忠孝节义等道德规范,就成为社会的伦理准则和伦理德目。印度佛教伦理反映了印度社会的人际关系,又以超越现实社会、追求精神解脱为目的。这种思想传入中国后,成为对儒家伦理观念传统文化思想、民族心理和民风习俗的巨大挑战,形成中国和印度、…     

Reduction of Greenhouse-Gas Emissions by Chinese Buddhists with Vegetarian Diets: A Quantitative Assessment

The equivalent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs) by Chinese Buddhists with vegetarian diets is quantitatively evaluated. By analysing data obtained from a national study, correlation analyses are performed to obtain appropriate formulas to predict the dietary GHGE by using meat consumption as the only input. To demonstrate its reliability, the prediction from the formulas developed is first compared with the results of a food-production study using a difference approach. Then the quantitative study of equivalent GHGE reduction due to Chinese Buddhists with vegetarian diets is presented. An assessment of the vegetarian population amongst Chinese Buddhists is also included in this study. The results indicate that Chinese Buddhists with vegetarian diets account for the equivalent GHGE reduction of 39.68 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent, which is a sizable amount and is equal to 7.2 and 9.2% of the GHGEs from United Kingdom and France in 2012, respectively. In modern times, the vegetarian practice of Chinese Buddhism should attract more Buddhists or lay people to follow, if the additional environmental and health benefits of vegetarianism could be emphasised. The resultant impact for the equivalent reduction of GHGEs could be even larger and the human-induced global warming problem could be further alleviated.     

Essay Review

RADHIKA HERZBERGER, Bhartrhari and the Buddhists. An essay in the development of fifth and sixth century Indian thought. Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster, Tokyo: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1986. xxvi + 252 pp. DF1.145/$64/£40.25.     

Religion and Subjective Well-Being: Western and Eastern Religious Groups Achieved Subjective Well-Being in Different Ways

Culture can moderate which variables most influence subjective well-being (SWB). Because religion can be conceptualized as culture, religious differences can be considered cultural differences. However, there have been few studies comparing how different religious groups evaluate SWB at any given time. This study is among the first to investigate this issue. The present study compared Buddhists, Taoists, Christians, and atheists. In addition to demographic items, 451 Chinese adults completed Chinese version of the Socially Oriented Cultural Conception of SWB Scale. Religious belief was distributed as follows: 10 % Christian, 20 % Buddhist, 25 % Taoist, and 43 % atheists. As predicted, the socially oriented cultural conception of SWB was found to be highest among Buddhists, followed in order by Taoists, atheists, and Christians. It was concluded that the various religious groups achieved SWB in different ways.     

Rethinking the Connections between Religion and Civic Life for Immigrants: The Case of the Chinese Diaspora

Through interviews with 33 Chinese American first- and second-generation immigrants, we ask how narratives that describe the link between religion and civic life differ among Buddhists, Christians, and nonreligious Chinese. All groups stress the tight institutional connections between religion and politics in the United States. For Chinese Christians, congregations provide opportunities to serve their fellow parishioners and the wider community, as well as political rhetoric to guide practices. Buddhists actively criticize a religious organizational approach to community service and the US connection between politics and religion, emphasizing the development of inherent ethical dimensions for motivating service to others. And the non-religious stressed the role of religious organizations in facilitating volunteering. There is also a difference between the responses of first- and second-generation immigrants, with first-generation immigrants having a more difficult time understanding the meaning of American community service. Results expand scholarship on the connection between religion and civic life.     

I don't believe but I pray: spirituality,instrumentality, or paranormal belief?

These three studies are among the first to systematically compare five Chinese religious groups on intrinsic (spiritual) and extrinsic (instrumental and paranormal) orientation. In Study 1, a Chinese version of the Index of Core Spiritual Experiences was developed. In Studies 2 and 3, spirituality and religious involvement was found to be greatest among Christians, followed in order by Buddhists, Taoists, traditional nones, and other nones. An instrumental purpose for religious activities and paranormal belief was found to be highest among Taoists, followed in order by Buddhists, traditional nones, other nones, and Christians. The results are consistent with the conclusion that Christianity offers the least support for an extrinsic religious orientation and the most support for an intrinsic religious orientation.     

Chinese Buddhist Religious Disputation

From about the fourth to the tenth century Buddhist monks in China engaged in formal, semi-public, religious disputation. I describe the Indian origins of this disputation and outline its settings, procedures, and functions. I then propose that this disputation put its participants at risk of performative contradiction with Buddhist tenets about language and salvation, and I illustrate how some chinese Buddhists attempted to transcend these contradictions, subverting disputation through creative linguistic and extra- linguistic strategies.     

Buddhist Teen Worldview: Some Normative Background for Health Professionals

Although there are dangers in essentializing religious practice, to be able to typify the worldviews of healthy Buddhists becomes advantageous when health professionals need to recognize atypical worldviews that are potentially pathological. The paper is an anthology of potentially ambiguous claims expressed by healthy Buddhist teenagers during UK research including outlook on karma, rebirth, meditation, mindfulness, contact with spirit presences, renunciation, spiritual teachers and superstition. The testimony helps clarify diagnosis of identity, well-being and conformity issues, social withdrawal, anxiety and psychotic disorders in Buddhist teens while offering advice on management of ADHD, OCD, substance abuse and depression. While offering normalized background against which health professionals can evaluate spiritual well-being of young Buddhists the paper offers advice for how treatment can be made more culturally sensitive for Buddhists.     

From Buddha's speech to Buddha's essence: philosophical discussions of Buddha‐vacana in India and China1

This is a comparative study of the discourses on the nature of sacred language found in Indian Abhidharma texts and those written by 7th century Chinese Buddhist scholars who, unlike the Indian Buddhists, questioned ‘the essence of the Buddha’s teaching'. This issue labeled fo‐chiao t'i lun, the theory of ‘the essence of the Buddha’s teaching', was one of the topics on which Chinese Yogācāra scholars have shown a keen interest and served as the inspiration for extensive intellectual dialogues in their texts. It is in Hsüan‐tsang's massive and organized translation works, begun in 648, that various previous translations of the term buddhavacana from Indian Abhidharma texts were given the unified translation of fo‐chiao. (Fo‐chiao literally means “the Buddha's teachings,” and is the term used in the modern period for “Buddhism.”) By combining fo‐chiao with the term t'i, meaning ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ throughout his translations, Hsüan‐tsang attempted to define ‘the essence of the Buddha’s teaching'. In Indian Abhidharma texts, the nature of the Buddha's word was either ‘sound’ (?abdha), the oral component of speech, or ‘name’ (nāma), the component of language that conveys meaning, or some combination of the two. From the time of Hsüan‐tsang's translation, however, discourse on the nature of sacred language was no longer relegated to the category of language or of epistemological investigation, but became grounded in the Chinese discussion investigating the ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ of the Buddha's teaching, and even of ‘Buddhism’ itself. As such, it sought to transcend the distinction between language and meaning. This gradual but explicit process of inquiry into the nature of ‘the Buddha’s word' was a necessary antecedent to the transition to a ‘Chinese’ Buddhism.     

Christian Identification and Self‐Reported Depression: Evidence from China

The nexus between religion and mental health in the East has been understudied, where the coexistence of multiple religions calls for scholarly attention to religious identification. This article investigates the impact on self‐reported depression of an individual's identification with Christianity in a non‐Judeo‐Christian and religion‐regulating social setting. Taking advantage of the Chinese General Social Survey 2010, our empirical analyses suggest that people who explicitly identify with Christianity report a significantly higher level of depression compared with both religious nones and self‐claimed Buddhists. In contrast, there is no significant difference in self‐reported depression between religious nones and self‐identified Buddhists. This study supplements current literature on the connection between religious affiliation and mental health with a particular interest in East Asia, suggesting that the consequence on mental health of religious identification is contingent on a religion's social status, and a religion's marginal position may turn religious identification into a detrimental psychological burden.     

Buddhist Narratives of the Great Debates

Western scholars have written on the theory of Buddhist argumentation. They have also analyzed examples of arguments found in philosophical and polemical writing. However, little has been written to date about what might have transpired when Buddhists and their opponents met in face-to-face debates in classical India. Drawing on Chinese and Tibetan historical and biographical writings about famous Indian debates, this essay analyzes the structure and conventions of these accounts as a literary form. While it is difficult to assess the historicity of particular narratives, an analysis of this literature as a whole gives us clues about what might have occured when Indian scholars faced their adversaries in live debates. These sources provide us with a picture of the etiquette, rules of engagement, and strategies that may have been used in such encounters. They also suggest what constituted defeat in ancient Indian verbal contests, and they point to some of the real-political and material benefits of victory. The essay ends by reflecting on the function of these narratives vis-à-vis Tibetan Buddhist scholastic identity.