Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 불교학연구 ISSN:1598-0642(Print)

This research aims to study the influence of Buddhism on the ideas of Mao Zedong(毛澤東, 1893-1976) in Chinese traditional thoughts. Our concern was how Mao Zedong accepted and estimated Buddhism. In that way we analogized the entire influence of Buddhism on his ideas. Mao Zedong insisted that the vital force of the history of Chinese philosophy was the ‘open spirit’, which absorbed and changed the external philosophy called ‘Buddhism’. This spirit came in sight into the evaluation of Han Yu(韓愈) and Liu Zongyuan(柳宗元). Unlike Han Yu who understood Buddhism critically, Liu Zongyuan accepted Buddhism positively and developed it as a new philosophy. Mao Zedong’s appreciation of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan showed his open mind to the eternal world. He thought that the ‘open spirit’ resulted in the dialectical development of ideology. Mao Zedong set a high value on Zen given it. Mao emphasized that Zen Buddhism had a positive role in the struggles along with the other part of social reality, ‘Subjective Activeness’. Also he asserted ‘the Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch’( 『六祖壇經』) became clear that because its nature emphasized labor and the proletarian, because the author of this sutra was born proletarian. Mao also asserted that Hua Yen Buddhism should be evaluated positively, on the basis of the fact that it acted positively to develop a deepening awareness. Mao Zedong’s positive evaluations of Buddhism are as follows: First, Mao attended to the principle of equality of Buddhism. Second, Mao accepted the ‘Subjective activeness’ of Buddhism. Third, Mao actively received ‘Dialectical elements’ of Buddhism. He connected the dialectical materialism of Marxism and ‘the doctrine of dependent origination’(緣起論) of Hua Yen Buddhism(華嚴宗). We find that there is a strong correlation between this positive evaluation of Buddhism and the fact Buddhism influenced the thoughts of Mao Zedong. Actually, Buddhism has had a substantial role in the reformation of modern China. Our significant conclusion is that Mao Zedong intended to make good use of Buddhism in the course of the revolution of modern China in order to solve the tasks of ‘anti-feudalism’ and ‘anti-foreign forces’.