英文摘要 |
The definition of filial love has been an issue of great importance since the introduction of Buddhism into China in the periods of Han and Wei. Early criticism of Buddhism aimed at two points: that tonsuring was tantamount to the damage of the body and that to become a monk meant the discontinuity of ancestry. Among the most powerful arguments of Confucianism are those asserted by Zhang Zai in his Ximing. Of great interest may it be therefore to call some attention to the responses of Buddhism to these criticisms. What concerns in this study is an examination of how the monks of late Ming, a period of Buddhist revival, designate various meanings of filial love for a person who is nonBuddhist, cultivating oneself, or who has attained Buddhahood. To take their commentaries on Sutra of Brahma’s Net as an example, great efforts are made to mediate the significance of filial love in Buddhist original scriptures and Chinese Confucian heritage. To describe filial love in secular and Buddhist terms at once is a methodology commonly agreed and adopted by the late-Ming masters. By definition, secular filial love is the concerns for our biological parents of this incarnation only and has little to do with the final liberation of the soul. Whatever we do, it can hardly extricate ourselves from the quagmire of samsara, let alone help our parents of endless incarnations. Buddhist filial love therefore is an extension of attention to our countless mothers and fathers in the whole stream of time. With them we aspire to get bodhi and enjoy beatitude. Obviously, the annotation of Sutra of Brahma's Net shows that the clarification of filial love is a springboard of Buddhist practice and a guaranteed access to ultimate truth. Perhaps it is a development that goes contrary to the Han-Wei critics. |