釋慧嚴=Shih, Huey-yen; 華嚴念佛; 王日休=Wang, Ri-xiu; 彭際清=Peng, Ji-qing; 魏源=Wei, Yuan; the inner world of Chinese Literati; 漢儒心靈世界; mindfulness of the Buddha according to the Huayen Sutra
The Amitabha Pure Land faith appeared most likely in the first century B.C. After the Lod Buddha passed into parinirvana, stupa became the place of remembrance and thus the stupa faith of worshipping the Buddha was formed. Later on,the thought of seeing the Buddha emerged gradually. During the reign of King Asoka of Maurya Dynasty or at latest the second century B.C,the concept of the past seven Buddhas was created out of the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering,one of the Four Noble Truths, i.e. the truth of suffering,the truth of the causes of suffering,the truth of the cessation of suffering,and the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering. The truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering is the Eightfold Noble Path or the so-called the teaching of the ancient yogi's path. At the end of the second century B.C,the concept of the future Maitreya Buddha was also formed. Until the first century C.E,the concept of the present bhadra kalpa appeared. In the time of Primitive Buddhism,the concept is one time,one world,and one Buddha. But,now the concept of the present bhadra kalpa asserted the existence of numerous present Buddhas in the worlds of ten directions despite the non-existence of the Buddha in this Saha world. So,if one wants to seek for enlightenment in the age of no Buddha in this Saha world,there are two ways:1. To have faith in the present Buddhas of ten directions, and 2. To obtain prajna paramita. In the first way,Amitabha Buddha is one of the representatives of the present Buddhas of ten directions. In the second way,the prajna thought that dharmakaya Buddha means seeing the Buddha was developed out of the concept that seeing the dharma means seeing the Buddha. These two streams of thought and faith merged in the period between 120A.D and 150A.D,and developed into the style of the Chapter of Practice in Pratyutpanna-samadhi Sutra. In the meantime,the Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra also contained the thought of Prajna Madhyamika. Such thought and faith were carried to Loyang of China by Lokasema and other northwestern savgha and Buddhists of northwestern India because of the incident of destroying Buddhism by King Huvishka of Kushan Dynasty. As a result,the sutras of both prajna thought and Amitabha pure land Buddhism were introduced into Loyang at the same time. Thus, the Chinese intellectuals got in touch with such thought and faith. Since Master Hui-yuan,Liu Yi-min and other monks and lay people of Eastern Tsin Dynasty followed the Pratyutpanna-samadhi Sutra to establish a society to practise the samadhi of recollecting the Buddha in front of the statue of Amitabha Buddha at Prajna Plateau in the north side of Mt. Lu-shan on the 28th day of the 7th month of 402C.E until the time of Peng Jiqing,Wei Yuan,Yang Renshan and other lay people of Ch'ing Dynasty,the Amitabha pure land Buddhism might exert considerable function of enrichment or impact upon the minds of Chinese Literati. This paper aims to understand the inner world of the Chinese Literati by investigating following topics:1. The thought of prajna and H