Buddhist philosophy is considered to be a kind of religious culture that advocates inner transcendentalism as its principal thought. It is a religious philosophy valuing man's own subjective reasoning. This appreciation of inner transcendentalism in subjective reasoning is shared with the Confucian and Taoist schools of thought indigenous to China, both in scope and in objectives. Inner transcenden-talism in subjective reasoning is not separate from the improvement of the nature of the mind. In this respect，Buddhism，Confucianism and Taoism all have clear-cut objectives for the improvement of the mind. This mutuality allowed the theory of the nature of the mind to gradually become the main point which the Mahayana Buddhism and indigenous Chinese philosophical schools of thought commonly shared. This compatibility had a significant impact on Buddhism and its philosophy in Chinese ideological circles; it also had a deep-seated cultural basis.
Seen from a historical point of view，the Buddhist theory on the nature of the mind is in essence one that shows the way to self-enlightenment and liberation in both the subjective and objective worlds. For historical，geographical，religious and other reasons, this kind of theory was rather complicated. It reflected on man in the universe, on the enlightened mind bringing its wealth of reasoning to the subjective and objective worlds, and so forth, and on the embodiment of man's profound wisdom.
Scholars of Chinese Buddhism inherited the idea and scope of the theory of the nature of the mind from Indian Buddhism，which they further developed into a system having distinctive cultural characteristics, and which was rather complicated and encompassing. In order to be able to do an analysis of its whole spectrum and be clear on the ideas of the theory of the nature of the mind as elucidated in Chinese Buddhism，one of the most rudimentary avenues is that of defining its scopes, understanding the essential meaning of its substance, and considering the interrelationship between the scopes.
