Note : Let me apologize to Mr. jeroenk here the "author" surely mentions one of the Zen schools was influenced by Taoism as I ignorantly criticized him here.
For your information, I happened to have found a site whose owner ( = author ) intends to summarize the book he read which tries to explain the relationship between Confucianism and Taoism and the import and its influence of Buddhism on them
The book is written by a Japanese professor Nobuyuki Kaji of Osaka university and his major is the history of Chinese philosophical history. The book is called 『What is Confucianism?』
( Hereunder let me call the author mainly "he or him".)
Confucianism could not become a religious organization due to its unique teachings despite its religiousness. The reason is it puts great values on worship of families' ancestors and the practice became to depend on each individual family. These ritual became more customary as the time descends so that it was not able to form a religious group such as Christianity and Buddhism. Inevitably, ordinary folks then chose Buddhism and Taoism for their pursuit of saving after their death. From the time of Han dynasty to Tang dynasty, these 3 competed with each other but gradually they became to converge.
Confucianism had a supremacy at the sphere of politics than others, but they had less impact on the teachings such as how Cosmos was created, or about Metaphysics itself. On the account of human beings' life and death, Buddhism preached the reincarnation, Confucianism the invitation and the consequent healing of the souls of those dead, Taoism the eternal life. According to Confucianists, the Qi of the soul of the dead go to Tian after human beings die, while the Qi of the body go to so-called "underground". Their religiousness is based on the thought that if descendants worship the deads, then the deads would resurrect back. However, that doesn't mean the death is escapable. Considering Taoism on that matter, they challenge to the death itself on the contrary. They taught people to "shape" their bodies by such as the special breathing method or Taijiquan to gain the eternal life, even creating medicines from such as mushrooms for that purpose. Their ultimate goal is so for everyone who practice Taoism to gain the eternal life. Also preached was if people worship Gods of Taoism, the people will gain the materialistic benefits while their lifetime. I would like to summarize as below the difference of thoughts about death and its resurrection by the 3.
Confucianism : Worship of their ancestors so that they would ressurect.
Taoism : Emphasis on efforts by self to gain the eternal life.
Buddhism : Reincarnation basing on the fate and the causal connection to gain the next life.
Chinese considered the Buddhism as a thought that could benefit them to acquire how to "live a next enjoyable life", disregarding completely the original belief of Buddhism that "Human beings' life itself is an anguish."
This greatest misunderstanding, discounting the essential Buddhists' core thought led to the widespread of Buddhism from the eras of Wei, Jin to Sui, Tang.
The above proposal by the author is relevant if we would like to consider the religiousness of Confucianism. The author consistently emphasizes Confucianism had the characteristic of the religiousness. Now let us refer to Xian Jin 11, 12 Confucius says
Ji Lu added, "I venture to ask about death?" He was answered, "While you do not know life, how can you know about death?"
As I ( = the blogger ) quote, this is an example that thought of Confucius is as secular and materialistic as well and it leads to the world order = Tao ( 道 ). I can agree the author's proposal as well, but from my viewpoint the Confucianism's characteristic of the non-religiousness could be the point of departure from the monotheistic viewpoint of the world. Such an ( Confucianism's non-religious characteristic ) idea could be a leverage to promote the "coexistence of the diversity and peace.
The blogger also presents his analysis in Jodo-Shu ( Buddhism )
As I ( = the author of the book ) mentioned before, the great misunderstanding by Chinese, that is again to say, they can seek the happy next life disregarding the original Buddhism core idea, ( = Human beings' lifetime is an agony ), consequently in the ultimate form invited the widespread of Jodo Shu. This happened in the same manner in Japan. The Buddhism's basic idea, that while in reincarnation they suffer many torments, was completely forgotten by Chinese and Japanese then, but the thought which is, by only chanting Amitābha they are able to seek the heavenly reward quite fitted with optimistic ideas of the then North Eastern Asians, namely Chinese and Japanese. It is peculiarly interesting to observe that in China the Zen Buddhism split into 2 schools, one is the school that seeks the heavenly help by his / her own effort, the other that preaches that seeks it by Buddha's power. And the former, the school of Zen which seeks the happiness after their death by his / her own effort, merged with the idea of Taoism, which puts great value on the transcendency, "the blending" of human beings with Nature. At that same time, there occurred a change in Buddhism too. People before the change took naturally the powerful influence by Confucianists' method of ritual for those dead, by the worship of the souls of their ancestors. Buddhists, in order to spread their ideas to Chinese, "absorbed" the Confucianism idea, worship of the souls of their ancestors, which in its Buddhism idea contradicts the idea of Reincarnation. They even made pseudo sutras such as 盂蘭盆経 or 父母恩重経 ( no English sorry ), which do not have their original texts in India. In Japan, Buddhism spread at high speed in Nara and Heian era. This could be due to the reason that in Japan back then the influence of Confucianism was not so wide, and furthermore already back then the "convergent Buddhism", which blended the idea of Confunianists' idea mentioned before, had already been imported before the import of Confucianism.
Confucianism : Worship of their ancestors so that they would ressurect.
Taoism : Emphasis on efforts by self to gain the eternal life.
Buddhism : Reincarnation basing on the fate and the causal connection to gain the next life.
But at least I think I could say Confucianism has been taken the most popular thought, a bit aloof, especially in politics, also considering up until 1905 Chinese dynasties after dynasties took Imperial examination in order to select candidates for the state bureaucracy.
Thank you.
