Chongxuan School
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The Chongxuan School (
Chongxuan is also an appellation of the immortal embryo in internal alchemy,[4] or Neidan, reflecting some influence of Chongxuan thought on Neidan.[5]
Thought
The Chongxuan authors continue the interpretation of a Daodejing phrase first used by the Xuanxue exegetical school, "mysterious and again mysterious".[6] The Xuanxue thinkers deduced from this phrase the infinite depth, hence the transcendence of the Dao, and its empty nature (wú 無). The Chongxuan school, inspired by the Madhyamaka thought of the Sanlun School[7] and the Buddhist philosopher and monk Jizang, considered the phrase to mean that there are two stages to attaining the Dao: first, to get rid of the mental illusion of being, and then that of nonbeing. A similar phrase in Daodejing chapter 48, "diminish and again diminish",[8] is interpreted as meaning the erasure of desire in two stages: first, to eradicate desire, and then to eradicate the ultimate desire of wanting to have no desires. In practice, Jizang's "forgetfulness in two steps" (jiānwàng 兼忘) will be accomplished; this inspired the Shangqing patriarch Sima Chengzhen's seven-step instructions of the Zuowanglun.[9] Similarity to Mahāyāna Buddhism and the soteriology of the Lingbao School is also found in some Chongxuan authors' idea that after the sage completes their spiritual path for their own benefit, they must benefit others.
On the other hand, Chongxuan thinkers also relied on the Zhuangzi, many of whose passages center around the overcoming of conceptual oppositions. Cheng Xuanying's commentary to the Zhuangzi is of great importance here.[10]
Active at a time when the
Authors
Apart from Cheng Xuanying and Li Rong, the following people are also mentioned as Chongxuan thinkers: Sun Deng 孫登 (third century), Meng Zhizhou 孟智周 and Zang Xuanjing 臧玄靜 (fifth century), Zhu Rou 諸糅 and Liu Jinxi 劉進喜 (sixth century), Cai Zihuang 蔡子晃, Che Xuanbi 車玄弼, Zhang Huichao 張惠超, and Li Yuanxing 黎元興 (Tang dynasty), and Shao Ruoyu 邵若愚 and Dong Sijing 董思靖 (twelfth century).
References
- ISSN 0169-8834.
- ^ Daodezhenjing guangshengyi 道德真經廣聖義
- ^ Livia Kohn, Daoist Mystical Philosophy: The Scripture of Western Ascension p 181-188
- ^ Fabrizio Pregado ed. Encyclopedia of Taoism, 200, Routledge, p24-25
- ^ Livia Kohn Taoism Handbook, 2000, Brill, p17
- ^ 玄之又玄
- ^ School of the "Three Treatises": Shatika śāstra 《百論》, Madhyamika śāstra《中論》 and Dvadashamukha śāstra《十二門論》
- ^ Ozkan, Cuma (2013). A comparative analysis: Buddhist Madhyamaka and Daoist Chongxuan (twofold mystery) in the early Tang (618-720) Chongxuan (twofold mystery) in the early Tang (618-720) (Thesis). University of Iowa. p. 54. Archived from the original on May 11, 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
- ^ 坐忘論, see Livia Kohn Taoism Handbook, 2000, Brill, p46
- ^ Hansen, Chad (2014). "Zhuangzi". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. University of Stanford. Retrieved 9 August 2021.