The Contemporary Development of Buddhist Philosophy in China’s Modernization Process: Taking “Learning Laws and Regulations, Abiding by Precepts, Emphasizing Spiritual Practice, and Establishing Positive Religious Image” as Practical Approaches
China’s modernization features the coordinated development of material civilization, spiritual civilization and social governance civilization, which poses profound challenges and opportunities for the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional Buddhist philosophy. Traditional Buddhist philosophy, with its core dimensions of moral discipline, spiritual cultivation and relational ethics, has long faced dilemmas such as rigid precept interpretation, disconnection between religious practice and national legal norms, secularization erosion of monastic groups, and blurred public religious images in modern social operation. This paper takes four core practical approaches proposed by Chinese Buddhist circles: Learning Laws and Regulations, Abiding by Precepts, Emphasizing Spiritual Practice, and Establishing Positive Religious Image as the logical framework. Based on classical Buddhist philosophy theories including Vinaya philosophy, Yogacara consciousness-only theory and Madhyamaka middle-way thought, combined with official statistical data released by the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) and national religious regulatory authorities from 1994 to 2025, this paper explores the internal logical correlation between Buddhist philosophical ontology and modern social governance, analyzes practical predicaments of contemporary Buddhist inheritance, and verifies the effectiveness of the four-dimensional practice system in promoting the sinicization of Buddhism and adapting Buddhism to socialist society. The research finds that the four practical approaches realize the modern institutional docking of Buddhist philosophy: learning laws and regulations completes the external normative docking between Buddhist communities and national legal systems; abiding by precepts inherits the inherent moral ontology of Buddhist Vinaya; emphasizing spiritual practice reconstructs the introspective cultivation system conforming to modern individual spiritual demands; establishing positive religious image promotes the social value output of Buddhist compassion ethics. Empirical data proves that standardized precept transmission, normalized legal training and strict monastic discipline supervision can significantly reduce the violation rate of monastics and improve the social recognition of Buddhist communities. This research provides a philosophical paradigm for the localized modern transformation of Chinese traditional religions and the integration of religious ethics into national modern spiritual construction.
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