Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, non-religious religion, is in the name of enlightenment, of course, including religious enlightenment. The reason is that the ancient people in China paid attention to educating the people and were used to understanding and evaluating the three doctrines of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism from the perspective of social and educational functions, but paid little attention to the difference between Shinto and human nature. Even Shinto focuses on the "teaching of Shinto", similar to today's sociological point of view. As far as the structure of the three religions is concerned, it is a benign mechanism of multi-interaction, which has the following characteristics: first, it is centripetal, that is, the three religions take Confucianism as the main body and Buddhism and Taoism as the auxiliary wings, forming a three-dimensional pattern with one main body and two cores and distinct levels, which has great cohesion and radiation and avoids the state of disintegration. To attach importance to Confucianism means to attach importance to the culture of propriety and righteousness. There are five spirits: kindness, respect for ceremony, respect for morality, neutrality and accession to the WTO. It conforms to the character of agricultural nation and the needs of family society, and naturally becomes the backbone and foundation of China traditional culture. Other theories and religions must be close to it and coordinate with it, but they cannot violate its basic principles. Second, pluralism means allowing the existence and development of different ideologies and cultures. Therefore, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, which are characterized by human culture, have their own legal existence and development space. In addition, there are Islamic culture in China, Christian culture in China and various ethnic and folk cultures. Therefore, the cultures of the three major religions are pluralistic and open. Third, interactivity, that is, harmony and complementarity, on the contrary, complement each other and complement each other. Among them, the complementarity of Confucianism and Taoism has become the basic thread of China culture, with one yin and one yang, one deficiency and one reality, which is both opposite and unified, promoting the development of China culture, while maintaining balance and avoiding going to extremes. On this basis, Buddhist culture entered, forming the interaction among the three religions, further enhancing the spirituality and transcendence of China culture.
Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism belong to different cultural systems. Confucianism belongs to the ritual culture system, Buddhism belongs to the Zen culture system, and Taoism belongs to the Taoist culture system. The cultural system of ritual system has always maintained two levels. One is the religious level and the other is the humanistic level. Worship of ancestors and national religion is a religious form of ritual culture. This form continued to the late Qing Dynasty in the form of institutional culture of suburban ancestral temples after the reconstruction of the Han Dynasty. However, it pays more attention to sacrifice than learning, and is satisfied with maintaining the basic beliefs of respecting heaven and ancestors in a family society like China, while at the same time stabilizing the autocratic monarchy and the family system in a shinto way. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it became more and more formalized and ritualized, which could not meet the needs of people to settle down. Confucianism, which was initiated by Confucius and Mencius and inherited by Lu, takes humanistic rationality as the core, makes the culture of etiquette develop in the direction of human study, and based on family ethics, constructs a philosophical edifice of heavenly life, including the theory of human nature, the moral view with loyalty and filial piety as the content, the political view with morality as the main policy, courtesy as the auxiliary punishment, the outlook on life, the social ideal of a harmonious world, respecting teachers and attaching importance to morality and adapting to abilities. Confucianism values man over god, and its humanistic rationality points out the direction for the development of Chinese civilization. The Zen culture of Indian Buddhism entered China, developed among intellectuals and spread among the lower classes, resulting in two different results. After rational absorption, the intellectual class philosophized Zen culture and formed Buddhism represented by Zen. Buddhism is not only a religion, but also a philosophy, with philosophy as the mainstay. It focuses on opening wisdom, improving consciousness and purifying the soul, and doesn't care about idolatry, so Buddhism is actually a philosophy. However, ordinary people are inseparable from the way of ghosts and gods. Due to the spread of Zen culture among the people, the polytheism and sacrificial activities of Indian Buddhism have been preserved and developed. The image preaching of the six great Bodhisattvas in "The Wheel of Karma" and "Three" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, which has also made the belief in pure land very popular and strengthened the nature of Buddhism as a Shinto. Buddhism is both philosophy and religion, and religion is the main body. Philosophy and religion interact in parallel to promote the development of Zen culture in China. Taoist culture also has two levels: philosophy and religion. Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy, metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties and Taoism after that emphasized the natural inaction of heaven, and put forward the world outlook of human nature, the political view of inaction and the philosophy of returning to simplicity, aiming at opening up a broad spiritual space for people. This is obviously a philosophy. Taoism, which was born at the end of Han Dynasty, has also appeared sects biased towards Taoist philosophy in its whole development process, but it is always inseparable from the pursuit of polytheism, fasting, alchemy and immortality, so it is Shinto. The philosophy and religion of Tao culture are sometimes parallel and sometimes cross, hovering between them.
The interaction between Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism is the interaction between philosophy and religion in terms of the relationship between Confucian anthropology and Buddhism and Taoism theology. As far as ritual culture, Zen culture and Taoism culture are concerned, it is still the interaction between philosophy and religion. China's ideological culture is both philosophy and religion, which is its unique spirit. It has never opposed philosophy and religion, Shinto and human nature, but has added philosophy to intellectuals and religion to folk groups. Due to the interaction between philosophy and religion, China's philosophy is a little religious mysticism; This also makes Chinese religions, especially Buddhism and Taoism, have strong philosophical rationality. Mr. Feng Youlan believes that rationalism and mysticism are not absolutely opposite. He said: "There are many philosophical works, all about the incredible and the indescribable. Scholars must be incredible, and then incredible; After understanding, it can be incomprehensible. Incredible and incomprehensible is the highest harvest of incredible understanding. Philosophical mysticism is the ultimate achievement of incredible understanding, not the opposite of incredible understanding. " [1] (p.187) Feng Youlan believes that it is the highest goal of philosophy to reach the realm of super-rationality through rational thinking (which Mr. Feng calls "the realm of the same heaven"). He believes that the difference between religious mysticism and philosophical mysticism lies in that the former relies on intuition and the latter on rational analysis. Mr. Feng summed up his research on China's philosophy with the logical analysis method of western philosophy in order to "make China's philosophy more rational". His ideal is: "The future world philosophy must be more rational than China's traditional philosophy and more mysterious than western traditional philosophy" [2](p.5 17). Mr. Feng Youlan's future philosophical ideal may be controversial; But his way of thinking is really Chinese, and he thinks China's philosophy is mysterious and accurate. He just didn't point out that the mysticism of this philosophy comes from the fact that China philosophers prefer to keep or introduce religious thinking habits, rather than make purely rational logical analysis. In addition, Mr. Feng believes that because China's philosophy already contains mysticism, which satisfies people's pursuit of super-moral values, there is no religious imagination and superstition, so he is confident that "mankind will replace religion with philosophy, which is in line with China tradition" [3](p.9). It seems that Mr. Feng underestimated the special role of religion, only attached importance to the mentality of intellectuals and ignored the spiritual needs of the lower class. Replacing religion with philosophy is not only impossible, but also inconsistent with the tradition of China. China's tradition is that religion and philosophy tolerate each other, absorb each other and develop in parallel. Philosophy dispels religious bigotry and ignorance with reason, and religion maintains the sacredness and mystery of philosophy with faith. This is how China's thought and culture came into being.
There is another saying about the cultural characteristics of China, that is, Mr. Liang Shuming's theory of "replacing education with morality". Mr. Liang believes that China is an ethical society, and China people can taste the joy of life and get spiritual sustenance from ethical life, so ethics "just forms a substitute for religion". Kong Zhou's religion is "morality, not religion", and Confucianism "turns ancient religion into ritual", "turns ancient religion into ritual and music, and turns ancient patriarchal clan system into ethics"; "For more than two thousand years, China's Feng Jiao culture has been centered on Confucius. It is undeniable that there are various religions coexisting at this time. First of all, there is a tradition of offering sacrifices to heaven and ancestors since ancient times. However, it has deteriorated and formed a part of the educational connotation of Confucius. "In addition, there are many foreign religions, such as Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, but they are not in the center. They all showed respect for Confucius. " They are all "chimeras" [4] (page 85, page 106, page11,page14, page 666), so China respects them. Mr. Liang pointed out that Confucianism transformed ancient religions into rituals. Confucianism is not a religion, but a doctrine based on morality, which is the core of China culture. These are undoubtedly insightful. However, it is biased to think that Confucianism embraces all traditional religions and makes other religions meaningless. China is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country, which can neither cover the whole Chinese nation with Han nationality nor cover China culture with Confucianism. On the one hand, although Buddhism and Taoism are influenced by Confucianism, they have more humanistic rationality and spirit of joining the WTO, but they have not lost their faith and worship of the gods as the essence of religion. Buddhism and Taoism have entered the cultural center of China, which has a far-reaching impact on Confucianism, and its cultural status and role cannot be underestimated; On the other hand, the religious beliefs of many ethnic minorities in China have always been more religious and popular than those of the Han nationality. For example, Islam is dominant in the top ten Muslim cultures, Tibetan Buddhism is dominant in Tibetan culture, and Buddhism spreads southward in Dai culture, which is very different from Han nationality. In the cultural history of China, ethical Confucianism only partially replaced ancient religions and influenced other religions to a certain extent, but it was by no means exclusive (except the policies of the Han Dynasty) and dominated everything. China culture is a pluralistic and harmonious culture. Between religion and philosophy, and between religions, it is generally harmonious but different, and each has its own position.
Since there are national religions and Confucian philosophies in China society, and they have a deep foundation and strong pillars, why is there the emergence and popularity of Taoism? Why was Buddhism introduced and developed? This is because the spiritual needs of China society can't be fully met by national religions and Confucianism alone, while Buddhism and Taoism can fill this space in their own unique ways. Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are highly complementary and irreplaceable.
Sacrificing to heaven, ancestors and country can only meet the spiritual and political needs of the upper class, but it is far from the spiritual life of the people. Although folk ancestor worship maintains people's affection, it can't respond to a series of life problems such as people's fate of birth, aging, illness and death. Confucianism focuses on the reality of this life and stresses morality, ethics and ethics, but it does not answer the question of where people come from and where they want to go. For example, Zong Bing in the Southern Dynasties said in "On the Ming Buddha": "As Kong Zhou said, it is unsatisfactory to cover rough land and seek treatment for rough feeling, and Que Ning is' within the ear of life'". Mr. Qian Mu said: "The hope of religion lies in the afterlife and heaven, and the hope of Confucianism lies in the present world, that is, the ideal lies in the present world." [5](p. 139) When people live in a miserable society and beautiful ideals cannot be realized, they must hope for the afterlife and the kingdom of heaven, and they must seek comfort in religion, which Confucianism cannot provide. In addition, the Confucian ideas of "good fortune and bad fortune" and "Qing Yu is always in the house of good fortune, and the house of bad fortune is full of troubles" contradict the cruel reality that good fortune and bad fortune cannot correspond. Why do the wicked live long and the good suffer? People are puzzled, and the theory of "family retribution" is also inconsistent with historical facts. Therefore, Confucianism is indeed profound, but it is weak in answering life questions and comforting the hearts of suffering people. The vacancy of Confucianism can be filled by Buddhism. After Buddhism entered China, it conquered the intellectual class in China with its grand momentum and metaphysical philosophy beyond Confucianism and Taoism. He conquered the lower classes in China with magical Buddha nature and vivid third world karma theory. Buddhism's theory of "robbing three thousand realms and creating evil emptiness" has greatly expanded China people's vision of time and space, and China's philosophy of "staying outside Liuhe" can't be compared with it. The theory of the origin of sexual emptiness and the four truths put forward by Buddhism especially reveal the temporary illusion of the phenomenon world and the bitter fact of life, which can touch the heartstrings of the victims and arouse their desire to seek liberation. Buddhism's theory of Buddha nature, Prajna and Nirvana enlightens people to explore the good roots and wisdom in their own nature, break customs in a silent and conscious way, get rid of life and death, reach a painless situation, and form a brand-new attitude and lifestyle, which can be regarded as an important psychological way of self-spiritual adjustment. The concept of compassionate and inclusive social groups advocated by Buddhism and the practical spirit of resolving grievances with morality and sacrificing oneself to save others have surpassed Confucianism and Taoism and become an important driving force for social welfare undertakings. Buddhism put forward the theory of "three karma" and "heaven and hell", which theoretically explained the unreasonable phenomenon that "those who kill have no bad karma, and those who benefit have no good karma". It is used to warn evil people when they are born, and it is also used to encourage people who are born good. Since then, Buddhism's "three-industry theory" has been widely circulated, which has become the basic attitude of China people towards good or bad fate. The mainstream society in China does not regard Buddhism as the opposite of Confucianism, but regards it as the supplement and expansion of Confucianism. For example, Zong Bing's "On Buddhism in the Ming Dynasty" said: "There are also Buddhist scriptures, which contain the virtues of the five codes and increase the reality; Including the emptiness of Laozi and Zhuangzi, but the increase is emptiness ",Buddhism can" Tao Qian Five Classics, and persuade ethics ".
Taoism can exist and develop, and it also has its own space. First of all, it advocates the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi, carries forward the simplicity, freedom and simplicity of Taoism, and makes Taoist culture preserved, continued and developed in Taoism. For example, Ge Hong's Bao Puzi contains Long Words, Yi Dao and Di Zhen, which are used to explain the philosophy of Taoist metaphysics. Metaphysics was emphasized in the Tang Dynasty, and the alchemy in Quanzhen Daoism, which rose in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, was based on advocating emptiness and truth-cultivation, which was very close to Taoism. In this way, Taoism can rely on Taoism when arguing with Buddhism, and it will not be completely denied. For example, Liu Song and Xie Zhen in the Southern Dynasties said that Taoism has various disadvantages, "it can be long, but it is useless for the five thousand ways" [6]. Shao, a monk of the Ming Dynasty, also said: "The purpose of Taoism is the two classics in my hometown; Shi Xuanji, seven chapters for Zhuang Sheng [7]. Secondly, Taoism emphasizes health preservation and wants to achieve longevity through health preservation, which is a unique doctrine of Taoism and is not found in other religions and theories. "Du Renjing" said: "The fairy road is expensive, and people are infinite." Taoism later talked about double cultivation, and it is Taoism's specialty to cultivate merit (that is, to cultivate physiology). Without life and work, it will not become Taoism. Buddhism talks about "no self" and "breaking my law and adhering to it", aiming at no self. Confucianism only attaches importance to moral life and ignores physical life. Confucius said, "It's no harm to listen to the Tao and die in the evening" and never talked about health preservation. Of the three religions, only Taoism is thoroughly remoulded, with both form and spirit, and pays special attention to the construction and strengthening of physiological life. Therefore, a set of inner alchemy has been developed, and the way of fitness and longevity and rich Taoist medical theory and technology have been developed. Xie Zhenzhi pointed out when refuting Gu Huan's "Yi Xia" theory: "Buddhism is tangible and illusory, so it forgets to help the people; Taoism takes me as the truth, so it takes food as health preservation. [7] He saw the difference between Buddhism and Taoism, because of this difference, Taoism can coexist with Buddhism, and people can learn a lot of wisdom and methods of health preservation and disease removal from Taoist health preservation culture, and combine psychological training with physical training. Third, Taoist deities are worshipped by ancient deities, cross with folk beliefs, and are familiar to the people. When people encounter disasters, they will pray for the protection of these gods, and ask Taoist priests to perform fasting ceremonies, praying for the gods to eliminate disasters and reduce happiness, which is irreplaceable by other religions. Such as Jade Emperor, Dongyue Emperor, Sanguan Emperor, Guandi, God of Wealth, Huang Cheng, Zhong Xu, etc. , are the beliefs of Taoism and customs, people have a sense of closeness to them. Fourth, Taoist priests have a profound tradition of serving the people in religion, such as exorcising evil spirits, curing diseases, eliminating disasters at home, predicting good or bad luck, and turning over the dead. Since the people have this religious demand, Taoism will have corresponding services. This kind of Taoism originated from ancient witchcraft. After improvement and development, scattered and vulgar folk skills were rectified and standardized, and it was linked with Taoist belief in immortals to appease people's emotions and adjust people's spiritual life. In this respect, Confucianism disdains not to do it, while Buddhism has no specialty in this respect, so the capital can play its social function.