The Influence of Chan Buddhism Spirit on Chinese Music/ de L'influence Du Zen Sur la Musique Chinoise (Report‪)‬

As one school of Indian Buddhism, Chan Buddhism was imported into China in Han Dynasty. Evolving from three Kingdoms, Western Jin dynasty, Eastern Jin Dynasty, South and North Dynasty, Chan Buddhism had been sinicized and became Chinese Buddhism, till Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, with the Buddhist scriptures being translated in Chinese language and concept. It adopted the idea of Huang-Lao Daoism and Metaphysics of Wei and Jin Dynasty to preach its theory and had been transformed repeatedly under the influence of Confucianism. After a long period of relying-on, resisting and absorbing Confucianism and Daoism, Chinese Buddhism entered into its golden age as well as its sincized period in Sui and Tang period. Chan Buddhism and the other sinicized schools took the thoughts of Confucianism and Daoism, developing their own theories to distinguish themselves from the Indian Buddhism. Especially after the Mid-Tang Dynasty, for the sake of simplicity of doctrine of Chan Buddhism, the long, tedious parts were cut out, so that Chan Buddhism met the requirements of Chinese culture better in terms of both content and form. The ruler of Tang Dynasty implemented the policy of 'three parallel religions: Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism', which objectively promoted the integration of three religions. In Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, the three religions further interacted with each other, creating the trend of combing three religions into one, which eventually resulted in promoting Buddhism to be merged with Chinese local culture and to become one of the most important pillars of Chinese culture. Furthermore, it affected the studies of Confucianism during Song-Ming Dynasty, inspiring the transform of Confucianism and eventually promoted the development of Chinese culture. (3) (211) The main characteristics of Chan Buddhism can be summed up in the following four aspects: Firstly, it simplifies the long and tedious doctrines, turning the speculative Buddhism, abstruse theories and fixed ways of ratiocination into situational cases, questions and answers in the form of puzzles, through which nature's mystery is revealed merely by one or two words and Buddhist theory is implied through some simple actions. In this way, all the complex argumentations and scholastic ways of studies of Buddhism have been abandoned; the Buddha-nature shines brightly; Paradise is in front of you and the Pure Land is yourself. Secondly, Chan Buddhism considers subjective intuition as the shortcut for self-cultivation, giving up the classics which emphasized on bitter meditation and long-time sitting without sleeping. HuiNeng (one of the Buddhists) has one pointed out that long time of sitting without sleeping is wrong, by which he expanded the functions of Chan meditation, extended the scope that was suitable for meditation and drew people's attention to the real meaning of Buddhism and valued the importance of understanding and knowledge. if you can see yourself clearly, you can see the world in the same way; everyone can be a Buddha if one is determined and start right now. Thirdly, it emphasizes emptiness as well as aliveness. The nature of Buddhism is like emptiness, which has no sense of existence or size or boundaries, but it has the trajectories of lives. Life is a struggle against bitterness, but the essentiality of life is vitality with freedom; people do not necessarily need to hate and abandon life in order to get liberated; reborn is a borderline between alive and dead. Fourthly, during the long time development and evolvement of Chan Buddhism, it has absorbed, combined, and melted several essentials of Chinese culture which was represented by Confucianism, Daoism and yin-yang theories. Therefore, compared with other religion schools, Chan Buddhism was easier to be accepted by the primitive Chinese culture and to become part of the culture. For instance, Chan Buddhism does not oppose against taking part in social activities or not; what it emphasizes is s