Philosopher
Zongmi
780–841 CE
Also known as Guifeng Zongmi
Fifth patriarch of Huayan and a patriarch of Chan, whose Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity ranked Confucianism and Daoism alongside Buddhist teachings, and found them wanting.
Zongmi studied the Confucian classics and Buddhism as a young man, trained with the Chan master Suizhou Daoyuan, and then studied the Avatamsaka Sutra briefly with Chengguan before an extensive career of writing. He gathered and wrote commentaries on sutras, and then compiled Chan texts into a canon, becoming a patriarch of the Heze school of Chan as well as, by tradition, the fifth patriarch of Huayan.
His collected writings on the source of Chan are lost except for their preface. The title of his Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity may play on Inquiry into the Origin of the Way, an attack on Buddhism by the Confucian Han Yu.
Key ideas
- Inquiry into the origin of humanity
- Zongmi’s ranking of teachings included Confucianism and Daoism. He praised Confucius and Laozi as great sages whose ethics benefit ordinary people, but argued that their accounts of human origins fail.
- Against an unconscious origin
- If humans, animals and plants all arise from the same vital force (qi), which has no consciousness, then either we should lack consciousness or grass and trees should have it. So qi cannot explain the human mind.
- The problem of a moral Heaven
- If fate is governed by a Heaven that follows the moral Way, Confucians and Daoists cannot explain why the virtuous suffer and the wicked prosper.
- Tradition
- Chinese
- Region
- China
- Schools
- Chan Buddhism
- Themes
- Human nature
Influences
Influenced by
Zongmi780–841 CE
Influenced
Influenced by
Zongmi780–841 CE
Influenced
Where these links come from
- Zongmi argued against Laozi. Source: Bryan Van Norden and Nicholaos Jones, Huayan Buddhism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Zongmi argued against Confucius. Source: Bryan Van Norden and Nicholaos Jones, Huayan Buddhism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Zongmi studied with Chengguan. Source: Bryan Van Norden and Nicholaos Jones, Huayan Buddhism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Uicheon drew on Zongmi. Source: Lucy Hyekyung Jee, Korean Buddhism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity (Yuanren lun)
- Read free at Wikisource (in Classical Chinese)
- Prolegomena to the Collected Writings on the Source of Chan (Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu)
- Read free at Wikisource (in Classical Chinese)
Terms on this page
- qi
- Vital force or material force (氣), the stuff of which all things are made. Neo-Confucians paired it with principle (li), and explained the differences between people by the qi each is endowed with.
Sources
- Bryan Van Norden and Nicholaos Jones, Huayan Buddhism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy