Chinese Buddhism (simplified Chinese: 中国佛教; traditional Chinese: 中國佛教; pinyin: Zhōngguó Fójiào) refers collectively to the various schools of Buddhism that have flourished in China since ancient times. Buddhism has played an enormous role in shaping the mindset of the Chinese people, affecting their aesthetics, politics, literature, philosophy and medicine.
At the peak of the Tang Dynasty's vitality, Chinese Buddhism produced numerous spiritual masters.Scholars classified Chinese buddhism into 7-15 schools., commonly into 10 schools(zh:汉传佛教十宗).
Read more about Chinese Buddhism: Lay Practitioners in Chinese Buddhism, Modern Developments in Chinese Buddhism, Festivals
Famous quotes containing the words chinese and/or buddhism:
“As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)