Buddhist-Confucian Dialogue

This volume offers a fresh exploration of the enduring dialogue between Confucianism and Buddhism, two traditions that have profoundly shaped East Asian thought. Reviving an exchange long neglected in modern scholarship, it proposes a new comparative approach in the philosophy of religion a way of understanding how these traditions have long coexisted through seeming opposition, continually shaping, challenging, and enriching each other s visions of truth and virtue.

Contributors examine diverse encounters where Buddhist and Confucian thinkers debated life and death, emotion and morality, self-cultivation and governance, while finding inspiration across traditions. Through discussions of ethics, political order, meditation, music, and humility, the chapters reveal how this dialogue generated creative syntheses that transformed both traditions over time. Together, they show that the interplay between Buddhism and Confucianism remains a living source of insight into the cultivation of virtue and human flourishing today.

Chapter 1. - Jinmu Kim, Yongbin You, and Jae-young Seo, Confucianism and Buddhism in Dialogue: A Historical and Philosophical Survey . - Part I: Contrapuntal Tension. - Chapter 2 Maki Sato, On Death and Burial: In the View of Nakae T ju and Kumazawa Banzan . - Chapter 3 Jea Sophia Oh, Korean Women s Jeong / (Emotions) in Buddhism and Confucianism: Korean Nuns Seon Practice as Eco-dharma for Self-Cultivation and Planetary Love . - Part II: Contextual Adoption. - Chapter 4 Steven Heine, Key Aspects of Chan Moral Discourse Impacted by Confucianism . - Chapter 5 Diana Arghirescu, Fostering Good Governance Through Interconnectedness: Contemporary Insights from Chan Scholar-Monk Qisong and Neo-Confucian Thinker Zhu Xi . - Part III: Creative Synthesis. - Chapter 6 Albert Welter, An Investigation into the Parameters of Buddhism in China: Hanhua (Han Ways Transforming the Barbarians) vs. Huahan (Barbarian Ways Transforming the Han) . - Chapter 7 Youngho Lee, The Interaction Between Confucianism and Buddhism from the Perspective of the Exegetical Tradition of the Analects . - Chapter 8 Suk Gabriel Choi, A Reflection on Korean Traditional Music from Confucian and Buddhist Perspectives . - Chapter 9 Leah Kalmanson, Let Us Give up Our Meditation Cushions! : A Confucian-Buddhist Conversation on the Power of Mental Cultivation . - Chapter 10 Doil Kim, A Paradox of Humility: Reflections on Confucian Self-Cultivation and the Three No s in Chan Buddhism .