The essay is focused upon understanding Zong Bing’s Buddhist world-view the concepts of physical form and spirit and their relationship, which are constituted into a major category in the thought of art as well as in the history of Chinese thought, ...
The essay is focused upon understanding Zong Bing’s Buddhist world-view the concepts of physical form and spirit and their relationship, which are constituted into a major category in the thought of art as well as in the history of Chinese thought, by dealing with the argument between the doctrine of the spirit-mortality and the doctrine of the spirit-immortality, both of which represent an idealogical controversy of Confucianism versus Buddhism in Wei Jin Nan Bei dynasties.
Hui Yuan, who is the principal proponent of the doctrine of pirit-immortality and the teacher of Zong Bing, argued the relationships of spirit, emotion and external objects under the main premise that “spirit and physical form are unlike, but change together. The inside and the outside are different but harmonious.” This logic analyzed elaborately the human life and the world of the soul. On the foundation of this logical thinking-way, Zong Bing wrote 「Ming-fo-lun」. According to 「Ming-fo-lun」, because originally emotion is not in contact with external objects, spirit is equivalent to soul. But, in reality, emotion is in contact with external objects, so spirit is turned into the vulgar soul. Reversely, he develops his logic based on the premise that soul is originally spirit and man can reach jietuo through the purification of soul. Through his self-negation the function of emotion ceases, man reaches the state of transcendence (wuwei), his physical form or worldly life is meaningless, finally accomplishes the jietuo where soul is spirit in the sense of originality. This also establishes the logical base that spirit dwells in landscape, and man reaches the world of Dao through the spirit of landscape.