Humanistic Buddhism Humanistic Buddhism (人間佛教; rénjiān fójiào) is a modern philosophy practiced by Buddhist groups originating from Chinese Buddhism which places an emphasis on integrating Buddhist practices into everyday life and shifting the focus of ritual from the dead to the living. Nomenclature Taixu, a Buddhist modernist activist and thinker who advocated the reform...
Chinese Esoteric Buddhism Chinese Esoteric Buddhism refers to traditions of Tantra and Esoteric Buddhism that have flourished among the Chinese people. The Tantric masters Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra, established the Esoteric Buddhist Zhenyan ( 真言, “true word”, “mantra“) tradition from 716 to 720 during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. It employed mandalas,...
Japanese Zen Japanese Zen refers to the Japanese forms of Zen Buddhism, an originally Chinese Mahāyāna school of Buddhism that strongly emphasizes dhyāna, the meditative training of awareness and equanimity. This practice, according to Zen proponents, gives insight into one’s true nature, or the emptiness of inherent existence, which opens the way to a liberated way of living. History...
De (Chinese) De (Chinese: 德), also written as Te, is a key concept in Chinese philosophy, usually translated “inherent character; inner power; integrity” in Taoism, “moral character; virtue; morality” in Confucianism and other contexts, and “quality; virtue” (guna) or “merit; virtuous deeds” (punya) in Chinese Buddhism. The word Chinese de 德 is an ancient and linguistically complex word. The...
Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, medicine and material culture. The translation of a large body of Indian Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and the inclusion of these translations together with works composed in China into a...
East Asian Buddhism East Asian Buddhism or East Asian Mahayana is a collective term for the schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in East Asia and follow the Chinese Buddhist canon. These include the various forms of Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Vietnamese Buddhism, and Korean Buddhism. Besides being a major religion in...
Subitism The term subitism points to sudden awakening, the idea that insight into Buddha-nature, or the nature of mind, is “sudden,” c.q. “in one glance,” “uncovered all together,” or “together, completely, simultaneously,” in contrast to “successively or being uncovered one after the other.” It may be posited as opposite to gradualism, the original Buddhist...
What Is Zen? Zen (禪; Chán, 선) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty as Chan Buddhism. It was strongly influenced by Taoism and developed as a distinct school of Chinese Buddhism. From China, Chan Buddhism spread south to Vietnam which became Vietnamese Thiền, northeast to Korea and east to Japan, where it became...