HIST 114 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Santa Barbara City College, Japanese Values, Tokugawa Ieyasu
Document Summary
In the sixth century, monks brought buddhism, a religion that originated in india and flourished in china. Buddhism taught that the path to happiness was calm, prayer-like meditation, rather than the adoration of saints or other religious figures. The zen branch of the faith was the style of buddhism which gained the greatest popularity in japan. Zen beliefs stress that through meditation all people have the ability to attain happiness, called enlightenment. At about the same time the japanese even assimilated the chinese philosophy known as confucianism. Its founder, confucius, was a chinese philosopher whose principles shaped the basis of chinese society. He compared a king"s relationship with his subjects to that of a father and his son. In his opinion, only if they obeyed their father, no matter what, could children live true, good lives. Parents also had an important role to make decisions based on what was best for the family, rather than personal glory.
