Yang Shi’s Confucian Quiet-Sitting Meditation: A Distinction from Cheng Yi and Huayan Buddhism
Song Bin
Religions December 16, 2024 DOI: 10.3390/rel15121537 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Interventions | quiet-sitting breathing calming the mind |
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Keywords | Contemplation Sitting Metaphysics Quiet Epistemology State computer science Aesthetics Theology |
| Key points | Argues that Yang Shi's quiet-sitting methodology follows a model of returning to the state of centrality and then preserving it in everyday life, based on a moral psychology where Tianli is manifest in the human heartmind. |
Abstract
Yang Shi initiated the Neo-Confucian methodology of self-cultivation centered on quiet-sitting, and focusing on Yang Shi may shift the study of Confucian quiet-sitting to a more chronologically appropriate “beginning-forward” approach. Incorporating techniques such as breathing and calming the mind, Yang’s approach to self-cultivation follows a model of returning to the state of centrality through quiet-sitting, and then preserving and expanding that state in moments of everyday life. This model is based on a moral psychology and metaphysics that views the comprehensive pattern-principle of the universe, Tianli, as fully manifest in the vital state of the human heartmind achievable through the practice of quiet-sitting. This view inherits major features of Cheng Hao’s philosophy while distinguishing itself from Cheng Yi’s. Yang Shi’s reflections on the differences between Confucian and Buddhist contemplative practices also indicate, despite his view being closer to the Huayan Buddhist metaphysical perspective of perfect fusion between pattern-principle and things compared to Cheng Yi, an insistence on characterizing his quiet-sitting philosophy as distinctively Confucian.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 4
- On some definitions of mindfulness Contemporary Buddhism May 1, 2011
- Asian Traditions of Meditation University of Hawaii Press eBooks October 31, 2016
- A Study of Cheng Yi’s Quiet-Sitting Meditation and Other Contemplative Practices in the Confucian Context Journal of Contemplative Studies September 18, 2023
- Meditators' Non-academic Definition of Mindfulness. Mindfulness May 24, 2022