楊慈湖思想以「天下惟心」、「毋意」而展開，不僅繼承了陸象山心學之精髓，而且對王陽明頗有啟發。他的思想頗具特色的還在於大膽吸收了佛家思想，借用了佛家論證方式及一些範疇，甚至將佛家人物與儒家人物相提並論。雖如此，慈湖思想的主旨還是儒家的。但若將其放在宋明理學會通儒佛這一大的思想背景下，超越是儒是佛的辨析，那麼慈湖思想則達到了儒佛會通的高度。同時，慈湖對佛家的寬容能度和他「薄海內外，皆吾赤子」的精神有著內在的一致之處。

　　　　　Yang cihu's ideas are outspreaded with the core of “mind only in universe” and “no sense”, which not only inherited the essence of Lu-xiangshan's theory of mind, but elicited Wang-yangming's thoughts much. The characters of his idea lie in that he absorbed much Buddhistic ideas, and applied some Buddhistic demostrating methods and conceptions, even juxtaposed Buddhists with Confucians. Even if this, the essence of Cihu's ideas is still confucian. However, placed under the great underground of Songming doctrine of Reason interpenetrating Confucianism and Buddhism, the transcend is Confucianism's differentiating and analyzing Buddhism. Than Cihu's ideas achieved that interpenetration of Confucianism and Buddhism Meanwhile, Cihu's catholicity to Confucianism consisted interiorly with his spirit of “home and abroad, universally my sons”.