ABSTRACT
A crisis in education that had its roots in socioeconomic change set the stage for Zhu Xi's synthesis of Buddhism and Chinese philosophical traditions. Both Zhu Xi and Thomas Aquinas lived and wrote during times of crisis and change in their respective societies. The intellectual crisis of the High Middle Ages in Europe developed out of a growing tension between the concepts of faith and reason and between the roles of religious and secular authority. Moral cultivation and self-awareness acquired through education were the starting points from which men realized their appropriate relationship to society and the cosmos. The relationships among lineage-sponsored schools, state-sponsored education, and the civil service examinations had become problematic. The intellectual crisis of the High Middle Ages in Europe developed out of a growing tension between the concepts of faith and reason and between the roles of religious and secular authority.
