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JINY. PARKCOMPASSION. SeeKaruna(Compassion)
CONCENTRATION. SeeMeditation
CONFESSION. SeeRepentance and Confession
CONFUCIANISM AND BUDDHISM
Chinese religions are traditionally divided into the
three teachings of Confucianism (Rujiao), Daoism
(Daojiao), and Buddhism (Fojiao). Because Chinese
cultural patterns (wen) were disseminated, primarily
in the form of writing, throughout East Asia, these
three teachings spread to Korea, Japan, and parts of
Southeast Asia. Confucians (ru) were scholars who
took as their principal task the administration and
maintenance of an ordered society, which they hoped
to achieve by remaining active participants in it (zai-
jia). Buddhists lived as monks and nuns in monastic
communities (SAN ̇GHA), renouncing the world (chu-
jia) behind walls and gates to free themselves and oth-
ers from the bondage of the cycle of life and death
(SAMSARA). Over the course of two millennia of close
interaction in China, Confucians and Buddhists
clashed on issues ranging from bowing to the emperor
and one’s parents to the foreign ancestry and routines
of the Buddhist faith. Even so, indigenous Chinese
Buddhist doctrines and practices stimulated develop-
ments within the late-imperial Confucian renaissance
known in Western scholarship as neo-Confucianism.
Historical and cultural considerations
The history of interaction between Confucianism and
Buddhism in China is the history of Chinese Buddhism
in the public and social sphere. Because Confucian
teachings were initially transmitted to Korea and Japan
principally by Buddhist monks, successful, separate,
and local Confucian traditions did not develop in
Japan or Korea until the neo-Confucian era; the rela-
tionship between Buddhism and Confucianism that
developed in China is representative of wider trends
throughout the East Asian region.
Confucianism became a religious and philosophical
tradition (ruxue) with the establishment of the five
classics (wujing) as the basis for official education in
136 B.C.E. The five classics include the Shijing(Classic
of Poetry), the Shujing(Classic of History), the Yijing
(Classic of Changes), the Liji(Record of Rites), and the
Chunqiu zuozhuan(Zuo Commentary to the Annals of
the Spring and Autumn Period). In addition to these
books, the sayings of Confucius (Kong Qiu, 551–479
B.C.E.), called the Lunyu(Analects), and the teachings
of Mencius (Mengzi, Meng Ke, ca. 371–289 B.C.E.) and
Xunzi (Xun Qing, d. 215 B.C.E.), among other classi-
cal commentaries, as well as state-promoting ritual
manuals and cosmological treaties, were sponsored by
early Confucians (rujia).Scholars and the clergy: The question of
Buddhist patronage
During the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), Bud-
dhism remained essentially an elusive, foreign creed,
practiced primarily among the many Central Asian
merchant communities that grew in Chinese trade
centers. Buddhism did not pose an institutional threat
to the burgeoning Confucian orthodox tradition of
statecraft or to the emergent Huang-Lao proto-Daoist
religious groups. During the interval between the fall
of the Han and establishment of the Sui dynasty
(581–618), however, piecemeal Buddhist doctrines
and practices—especially teachings about DHYANA
(TRANCE STATE) and S ́UNYATA (EMPTINESS) as ex-
plained in the PRAJN
APARAMITALITERATURE—were of
great interest to both non-Chinese rulers in the north
and southern aristocrats. Serindian monks and their
Chinese counterparts in the north and south after 310
C.E. began to trade verses of poetry with aristocrats to
communicate Buddhist theories in a Chinese context.
The outcome of these exchanges between Confucian-
trained aristocrats, Buddhist monks, and Daoist adepts
is known as “dark learning” (xuanxue). “Pure talk”
(qingtan) exchanges that included discussions aboutCOMPASSION