Tibetan philosophy

By Tillemans, Tom J.F.

Tibetan philosophy – if we can make a rough separation between what is predominantly argument-oriented and analytical and what is more a question of ritual, devotion or vision ...

Buddhist philosophy, Chinese

By Lusthaus, Dan

When Buddhism first entered China from India and Central Asia two thousand years ago, Chinese favourably disposed towards it tended to view it as a part or companion ...

Buddhist concept of emptiness

By Williams, Paul

‘Emptiness’ or ‘voidness’ is an expression used in Buddhist thought primarily to mark a distinction between the way things appear to be and the way they actually are, ...

Mujō

By Hull, Monte S.

A Japanese word originating in Buddhism, mujō means impermanence, transience or mutability. It characterizes all phenomena of experience, but is especially significant for human endeavours to achieve ...

Neo-Confucian philosophy

By Ivanhoe, Philip J.

Chinese neo-Confucian philosophy, or ‘neo-Confucianism’, is a term which refers to a wide variety of substantially different Chinese thinkers from the Song dynasty (960–1279) through the Qing dynasty ...

Phenomenology of religion

By Westphal, Merold

The phenomenology of religion is a descriptive approach to the philosophy of religion. Instead of debating whether certain religious beliefs are true, it asks the question ‘What is ...

Phenomenology of religion

By Westphal, Merold

The phenomenology of religion is a descriptive approach to the philosophy of religion. Instead of debating whether certain religious beliefs are true, it asks the question ‘What is ...

Li

By Ivanhoe, Philip J.

Li means ‘pattern’ or ‘principle’, and as a verb can also refer to the creation of orderly pattern. Mencius believed that the human heart–mind had an inherent taste ...

Confucian philosophy, Korean

By Kalton, Michael C.

Confucianism came to Korea in the late fourth century ad. While Buddhism, which had arrived at the same time, was for centuries the central spiritual and intellectual ...

Mysticism, history of

By Payne, Steven

Contemporary authors generally associate mysticism with a form of consciousness involving an apparent encounter or union with an ultimate order of reality, however this is understood. Mysticism in ...

Buddhist philosophy, Indian

By Hayes, Richard P.

Buddhism was an important ingredient in the philosophical melange of the Indian subcontinent for over a millennium. From an inconspicuous beginning a few centuries before Christ, Buddhist scholasticism ...

Buddhist philosophy, Japanese

By Maraldo, John C.

Buddhism transformed Japanese culture and in turn was transformed in Japan. Mahāyāna Buddhist thought entered Japan from the East Asian continent as part of a cultural complex that ...

Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419)

By Tillemans, Tom J.F.

Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (Dzongkaba Losang dragba), the founder of the dGa’-ldan-pa (Gandenba) school of Tibetan Buddhism, was born in Tsong-kha, in the extreme northeastern ...

Self-cultivation in Chinese philosophy

By Wei-Ming, Tu

Chinese philosophy may be viewed as disciplined reflections on the insights of self-cultivation. Etienne Balazs asserted that all Chinese philosophy is social philosophy and that, even if Chinese ...

Buddhist philosophy, Korean

By Cho, Sungtaek

Buddhism was transmitted to the Korean peninsula from China in the middle of the fourth century ad. Korea at this time was divided into three kingdoms: Kokuryô, ...

Zongmi (780–841)

By Gregory, Peter N.

Zongmi was a Chinese Buddhist Chan (Zen) and Huayan scholar, traditionally reckoned as the fifth ‘patriarch’ both in the Heze line of Southern Chan and in the Huayan ...

Dōgen (1200–53)

By Kasulis, Thomas P.

Dōgen Kigen, the founder of Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhism, is most noted for his argument that meditation is the expression or enactment of enlightenment, not the means to ...

Buddhism and sexuality

The study of Buddhism and sexuality increasingly centres questions of power. Rather than viewing sexuality in Buddhism as a monolith, as if there were one story of Buddhism ...