Filial Piety By Mu Lien Analysis

To Confucians, and therefore, the majority of Chinese at the time, the Buddhism that had entered China did not adhere to their beliefs about filial piety. To the majority of Chinese, they saw Buddhists as people who had abandoned their parents and left them to take care of themselves-- quite the opposite of filial piety. However, with the story Mu-lien rescuing his mother, this changed and allowed Buddhism to promote itself as a religion that encourages filial piety, contrary to what Confucians would say. Mu-Lien clearly saves his mother from hell because of his filial devotion to her. He cannot bear the fact that his mother is being tortured for, what he believes, is his actions. Mu-Lien believes that this filial piety is natural between …show more content…
Mu-lien leaves for Buddhist study only after both his parents have died, therefore, he is not abandoning his parents at home, a claim that Confucians would argue against a layperson leaving to study. Additionally, Mu-lien appears to have only entered into Buddhism as a result of his mourning his mother’s death and in interest of the other worldly powers of the Buddha. Powers that he wishes to gain access to so that he can then visit his parents in the afterlife and thank them for raising him and whatever else they had done for him while they were still alive. Furthermore, Mu-Lien never accepts that his mother did any sort of wrongdoing, blaming himself for her downfall into the lowest hell, torturing himself and even killing himself during his trance state in the afterlife, thereby signifying the upper status that his mother holds in his mind. This all goes without mentioning the extensively long journey that Mu-lien takes in the afterlife just to be with his mother, something that would take serious devotion and filial piety to complete. This is best exemplified when Mu-lien …show more content…
This last line illustrates the larger purpose of this text. This text is a Buddhist text and from this text, it is shown clearly that the only way in which to save one’s ancestors or parents from hell is to call upon the Buddha and read the sutras of the Buddha. Doing these merit building rituals will create positive merits and these merits can then be dedicated to one’s ancestors, thereby, releasing them from their position in hell or their existence as a hungry ghost and into another rebirth from which they can be freed and allowed into heaven. This then confirmed with the majority of the Chinese population that Buddhism was indeed a religion of filial piety, that Confucianism was not the only way in which one can save their ancestors from a poor existence in the afterlife, thereby allowing Buddhism to be a more widely accepted religion, a religion that upheld both Buddhist and Chinese ideology. The story of Mu-Lien saving his mother is a text illustrating how Buddhism can indeed be a religion that respects filial piety in a Chinese sense, and from this adaptation to Chinese culture, Buddhist doctrine became a more widely accepted religion for it