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Item 8.F
An introduction to Buddhism
Buddhism（佛教）is among the world’s great religions, and as such, it is beyond the scope of
this lesson to do it justice. However, China is one of the Asian countries where Buddhism has
had a significant impact, and it’s important for students to have at least passing knowledge of its
principles. Buddhism originated in India. (Siddhartha Gautama, the founder, became known as
Buddha（菩萨）, the “Enlightened One.”) Buddhism spread into China during the first century of
the Common Era through Central Asia and along the silk routes (see Lesson 17). But it was later,
during the Age of Division (220–589) that Buddhism took root. Just as Confucianism and the
schools of thought in this lesson took hold during the Warring States Period（战国时期）, in the
Age of Division people questioned traditional values and social as well as governmental systems.
Buddhism, writes Patricia Ebrey, offered the Chinese “a radically different way of conceiving of
life and death, humanity and cosmos” (The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, p. 95).
Buddhism teaches that after death, a person becomes reincarnated (after passing through
a period of review), and that this cycle of rebirth continues until an individual achieves a state of
“nirvana”（涅盘）—bliss. Each person has “karma（因果）.” This is the effect of an individual’s
actions during his of her lifetime, and it affects the person’s destiny in rebirth—in other words,
who or what that person will become when reincarnated. The religion speaks to people’s
suffering and offers them hope of transformation in a future life.
The Chinese Buddhists, in general, believe in Buddha’s ideas contained in the Four
Noble Truths:
1. Life is suffering. Even though life is a mix of pleasure and pain, pleasure does not last. It
is tied with suffering because we suffer by wanting pleasure and happiness, by wanting
the pleasure to continue, and by wanting painful periods to end so pleasure can begin.
2. Suffering comes from craving. We crave for pleasure and for things to be as they are not.
We don’t accept life as it is.
3. Suffering has an end.
4. The way to end suffering can be found in the Eight-Fold Path and the Middle Way.
The Middle Way rejects all extremes of thought, emotion, action, and lifestyle. Like
many Buddhists in India, the Chinese Buddhists took vows against killing animals, stealing,
drinking alcohol, lying, and impurity.
Although there were different Buddhist sects in China, their beliefs were harmonious.
They agreed that a religious life had the following requirements: (1) intellectual understanding or
Buddhist wisdom, (2) faith, (3) meditation, and (4) a life lived with moral self control under the
discipline of the rules given by Buddha himself.
Like the schools of thought discussed earlier, the practice of Buddhism in China has gone
through phases. It spread rapidly after the fall of the Han（汉）dynasty in 220. Between 400 and
700, it was the dominant spiritual influence in China. Buddhism transformed the landscape when
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temples and monasteries were built in towns and in the mountains. It also transcended class
differences. During the Tang（唐）dynasty (618–907), Buddhist institutions had a prominent
role in Chinese life. Monasteries operated schools for children and in their remote locations
provided lodging for travelers. They served as a place for social gatherings for scholars, and they
also had an impact on the economy because Buddhist monasteries owned enormous tracts of
land, which were farmed by serfs. Toward the end of the Tang dynasty, the government
determined that the effect on the economy was negative and there was a huge backlash against
Buddhism. Pure Land（净土）and Chan（禅）Buddhism continued to have followers later, but
Buddhism never again had the wealth and power it had had earlier. Some of the most
extraordinary antiquities in China today are ones related to Buddhism, when it was most
prominent. The religion continues to influence deeply Chinese people’s views about death and
the afterlife.
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