A Buddhist Reading Of The Analects: Ou-yi Chih-hsü's Interpretations Of Confucius
Abstract
This paper analyzes the seventeenth century, Ou Zhi Xu "The Analects" thought the world of interpretation. This paper first pointed out that Zhi Xu for infinite life, and death the same view as the core of the reconstruction of the Confucian conception of death, then to learn the position of the heart re-interpretation of Confucian thought in the "learning", "Road" and "destiny" three important concepts. Zhi Xu will be "learning" as "heart" of the awakening, the "Road" as "empty Johnson feel", so the "known fate" interpreted as "no life eternal truth" and "false birth and death of original "transparent. All these new interpretations, in East Asia "Analects" interpretation of history, has its particularity, on the one hand to show Wang after the "heart" interpretation of the classic study of "free" style of study, on the other hand shows the late Ming and three religions trend of thought. This paper is an attempt at an analysis of a seventeenth-century Buddhist thinker Ou-yi Chih-hsü's re-exposition of the Analects. It has been argued that in the Buddhist monk Chih-hsü's thought, death in taken to continue life in a radically ultimate manner. He stressed the awakening of one's mind-heart in the endless flow of many lives. He reinterpreted the three key notions in Confucius thought, namely, learning , the way and Mandate of Heaven . According to Chih-hsü, Confucius notion of learning should be taken as the enlightening of one's mind-heart. The tao referred to the way of "great awakening," and the "comprehending of the Mandate of Heaven" meant the thorough understanding of the transcending of the endless re-birthing and annihilation. Chih-hsü's new interpretations of the Analects was of paramount importance in two ways. On the one hand, his interpretations exhibited the "liberal" hermeneutics of classics in post-Wang Yang-ming era. On the other, it revealed to the intellectual inclination torward syncretism of three religions in late imperial China