Hui Yuan, a senior monk in the struggle against Buddhism

Guide

After Buddhism was introduced to China, it was not naturally compatible with China's ideology and culture. In the process of this run-in, there was even an anti-Buddhist struggle. So, as a generation of senior monks, how did Hui Yuan live with himself? Friendship tips: This article analyzes Hui Yuan's theory, adopts the mainstream view, only for knowledge exchange, and has no other intentions, hoping to point in the friends of the rational view.

Hello everyone, welcome to the old Li Tou Lying Talk, I am old Li Tou. History tells us that Hui Yuan chose to face difficulties.

In response to the problems raised in the anti-Buddhist struggle in society at that time, he focused on two issues. The first is to demonstrate the consistency between Buddhist teachings and traditional Chinese thought; the second is to further demonstrate the theoretical basis of Buddhist religious teachings such as reincarnation and karma- the theory of the immortality of the soul.

During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the first question also sparked a debate about whether Shamen (monks) should honor the king. At the same time, this also reflects the opposition between the monastic landlord class and the secular landlord class from the side. In response to this problem, Hui Yuan believes that if a person believes in the Buddha, his Daoist deeds can spread throughout the six relatives and even the whole world. Therefore, although he did not occupy the position of prince and engage in practical political activities, his role was already to assist the emperor in governing the people. Therefore, the monks who appear to deviate from the innate relationship between their parents and children on the surface do not actually violate the moral code of filial piety, just as the monks do not formally perform kneeling and praying to the emperor, and in fact do not lose the principle of respect.

The second problem is much more complex. Buddhism holds that a person's poverty, wealth, and inferiority in this or future lives are the result of his own past life or this life doing good and evil. In this way, there must be a bearer of the subject in past, present, and future lives. Buddhism does not recognize the immortality of the body, so the bearer of this subject must be borne by an independent and immortal spiritual subject. But Buddhism also advocates that "everything is empty" and that if such a spiritual subject exists, it is impossible to truly attain perfection. Hui Yuan avoided this contradiction and, based on the understanding of Buddhist theory by ordinary Chinese people at that time, argued that the god (soul) is immortal and immortal, laying the theoretical cornerstone of karma.

Proceeding from the premise that everything is empty, Hui Yuan believes that all the evil consequences suffered by man are due to his own emotions such as "ignorance" (ignorance) and "craving". This kind of self-inflicted karma seems to Hui Yuan to be fast and slow. Some are reported in the present life, called "present newspapers"; some are reported in the next life, called "life newspapers"; and some are reported after a hundred years and a thousand years, called "post-reports". Only by removing worldly emotions such as "ignorance" and "craving" and seeing everything as emptiness can we transcend samsara, devote ourselves to the Western Pure Land Paradise, and forever attain buddhahood (becoming a Buddha).

Then again, why does this retribution happen accurately?

This is because there is an independent and eternal spiritual subject as the bearer, and the flesh, although different, has always been the same spiritual subject. Hui Yuan cites some of the arguments of ancient Chinese Taoists, such as Zhuang Zhou's statement that "death is anti-truth", arguing that God is never destroyed. Since God is immortal, how does He transfer from one form to another? Hui Yuan believes that it is like a fire passing from one firewood to another. There is a logical problem here, because Hui Yuan is talking about firewood is concrete, and when he talks about fire, he is no longer talking about a specific fire but about ordinary fire. Specific firewood and general fire cannot form a correspondence.

Next issue is coming soon

No matter how Hui Yuan argues, he has never escaped the main contradiction between "everything is empty" and an independent and eternal spiritual subject. Hui Yuan's argument had a great impact at the time, and many anti-Buddhists at the time failed to theoretically refute him. In the next issue, we will briefly talk about the Buddhist theorist Monk Zhao, who was the same period as Hui Yuan, and see what he said.