In Building Bridges between Chan Buddhism and Confucianism, Diana Arghirescu explores the close connections between Buddhism and Confucianism during China''s Song period (960-1279). Drawing on In Essayson Assisting the Teaching writtenby Chan monk-scholar Qisong (1007-1072), Arghirescu examines the influences between the two traditions. In his writings, Qisong made the first substantial efforts to compare the major dimensions of Confucian and Chan Buddhist thought from a philosophical view, seeking to establish a meaningful and influential intellectual and ethical bridge between them.
Arghirescu meticulously reveals a "Confucianized" dimension of Qisong''s thought, showing how he revisited and reinterpreted Confucian terminology in his special form of Chan aimed at his contemporary Confucian readers and auditors "who do not know Buddhism." Qisong''s form of eleventh-century Chan, she argues, is unique in its cohesive or nondual perspective on
