Contemporary Neo-Confucian scholar Prof. T'ang Chun-I (1909-1978) constructs a philosophical Theory of “the Nine Realms of Mindfulness” in his final masterpiece Life Existence and Spiritual Realm. He summed up his overall understanding of Buddhism's compassion, wisdom and transcendence of the constraints of life with the eighth realm: "Both Emptiness of I and Dharma-Save All Beings Realm-One True Dharma Realm". Prof. T’ang realized that the Buddha’s great compassion is to save all sentient beings from the afflictions and sufferings of the world by consciously realizing his wisdom of life. The Mahayana Prajna school’s ‘‘removal of self-clinging’’ and ‘‘comprehension of emptiness’’ and the ‘‘consistency of karma’’ and ‘‘ causality of good or evil’’ of Consciousness-Only School, and the concepts of ‘‘completing of interpretation and action on the moment’’ and “all sentient beings could saved” of Huayan School played a key role in Prof. T’ang’s later years. The purpose of this paper is to focus on these important Buddhist concepts in the eighth realm of T'ang Chun-I’s “Theory of the Nine Realms of Mindfulness”, and to propose that T'ang Chun-I’s philosophical system is inspired by Buddhist principles, hoping to be helpful to the transcendence of the human mind.
