Zijie Li

I plan to continue my research on Tathagatagarbha and consciousness-only ideas, focusing on the early history of Japanese Buddhist thought, before the teachings of Kukai and Saicho were developed. In particular, I am pursuing the question of how Tathagatagarbha and consciousness-only ideas, which developed in the context of Chinese Buddhism from the fifth to the seventh centuries, were understood and accepted in Japanese Buddhism during the Nara and Heian periods. In my doctoral dissertation, following the Ratnagotravibhaga, I reviewed and reconsidered the Tathagatagarbha and consciousness-only theories in the context of Chinese Buddhism. To better research East Asian Buddhism, I plan to reassess them in the context of Japanese Buddhism before Kukai and Saicho.