chapter 2 Making a Virtue of Piety: Dizigui and the Discursive Practice of Jingkong’s Network

Ji Zhe

The interactions between constitute one of the essential driving forces of religious innovations and changes, of which the dialogue between and undoubtedly offers a typical example. It is well known that Neo-Confucianism that emerged during the would not have come into being without Buddhist stimulations. Recent research also suggests that innovations in the realm of 20th Century “New Confucianism” also stemmed from the Confucian-Buddhist dialogue.1 On the other hand, some scholars posit that during the same period of time Buddhist modern reform movements such as “Buddhism for the human realm” (renjian fojiao 人間佛教) also “integrated Confucian elements into Buddhism” (yuan ru ru fo 援儒入佛).2 Finally, numerous new religious movements in modern China such as Sanyijiao 三一教 and Yiguandao 一貫道 have an ecumenical dimen- sion that mobilizes both Confucian and Buddhist resources. It is not surprising that religious interaction also has to be taken into account in order to fully understand the on-going revival of Confucianism in China that started in the early 2000s. This revival is above all a result of the complex reconfiguration of relations between the state, culture and society in the con- text of globalization. However, such a process leaves room for a number of very significant inter-religious events. For example, as an incarnation of Western civilization is targeted by some Confucian discourses. The 2010 and 2016 controversies about a Protestant church project in Qufu—the hometown of —showed how inter-religious issues may generate ideological mobilization and increase people’s sensitivity to the religious revival. In con- trast, the tension between Confucianism and Buddhism does not seem to be

1 Xu Jia 徐嘉, Xiandai xinrujia yu foxue 現代新儒家與佛學 (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chu- banshe, 2007). 2 Yang Huinan 楊惠南, “‘Renjian fojiao’ de jingdian quanshi: shi ‘yuan ru ru fo’ huo shi huigui Yindu” 人間佛教”的經典詮釋——是”援儒入佛”或是回歸印度?, Zhonghua foxue xue- bao 中華佛學學報 13 (2000): 479–504; Li Guangliang 李廣良, “Taixu dashi ruxue sixiang shuyi” 太虛大師儒學思想述義, in Fofa yu ziyou 佛法與自由, Li Guangliang 李廣良 (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe, 2008), 166–191.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004374966_004 62 Ji very significant. In today’s China, these two traditions seem more cooperative and complementary than ever before. Although some sort of self-proclaimed Confucian intellectual elite hardly mentions Buddhism in order to preserve a supposedly orthodox “Confucian authenticity,” Buddhism nevertheless plays an important role in the Confucian revival in the “space of the people” (min- jian 民間), and this cannot be ignored. On the one hand, Buddhist doctrine provides a language for practitioners to better understand and express their transcendent and experience concerning Confucianism.3 On the other hand, Buddhism, through its well-developed networks and organizations greatly contributes to the nation-wide success of the “Classics-reading” (dujing 讀經) and “National Studies” (guoxue 國學) movements. In fact, some impor- tant promoters of these movements such as Nan Huaijin 南懷瑾 (1918–2012)4 and Jingkong (or Chin Kung) 淨空 are Buddhists.5 This chapter is mainly based on fieldwork carried out in 2011, 2012 and 2013 in three Buddhist temples affiliated to Jingkong’s network and located in Liaoning and Gansu provinces. I examine below how a short text of popular Confucianism, the Dizigui (弟子規, Rules for Disciples), regained its vitality in the PRC thanks to the efforts of Jingkong and his followers to the point where it happened to be sanctified by them as a “classic” of the whole “Chinese culture.” I argue that this “canonization” of Dizigui is not a simple matter of thought but a discursive practice that impacts the reconfiguration of the religious field. Thus, such a practice not only provides popular Confucianism—the counter- pole to elite/official Confucianism—with an applicable ethical impetus, but it also impacts the relationships between different Buddhist groups, between Buddhism and Confucianism, and, even beyond, between and society in contemporary China.

1 Rediscovering a Text: Dizigui as Confucian Rules for Disciples and Beyond

Since the start of the new century, a tiny booklet edited about 300 hundred years ago has become again very fashionable in China. Its title is Dizigui, and it

3 Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval, Le Sage et le peuple, le renouveau confucéen en Chine (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2014), 141–160. 4 For a critical biography of Nan, see Catherine Despeux, “The ‘New Clothes’ of Sainthood in China: The Case of Nan Huaijin,” in Making Saints in Modern China, eds. David Ownby, Vincent Goossaert and Ji Zhe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 349–393. 5 See also Ishii Tsuyoshi’s chapter for the case of the Taiwanese Buddhist Konghai’s engagement in “National Studies” in the PRC.