Sorry for misleading.
Here more:
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Buddhist monks and nuns, perhaps tbe most iconoclastic of the
three ritual teachers, disapproved entirely tbe practices of popular
religion and Taoism. The use of statues, scrolls, rituals, or meat offer-
ings from the popular religion are forbidden in Buddhist temples. Yet
the Buddhist temples of China allow tbe reading of fortunes, the chant-
ing of prayers to tbe Patron Spirit of the Soil on the first and fifteenth
days of the lunar month, and other acquiescences to popular fervor.
Further, an elaborate set of rituals for the deceased, a complete
capitulation to the Chinese belief in a soul and the afterlife, developed
at a very early date in China and Japan. Whatever the teachings of
Buddbologists, philosophers, and scholars, the Buddhist care for the
soul in the afterlife became the main upaya (fang-pien) convenient and
skillful means for winning Chinese converts to the foreign religion from
India. Buddhist philosophy for the intellectual, and popular burial serv-
ices for the people, endeared Buddhism in the hearts of the people.
Of the three teaching systems, Taoism was always the closest to
Chinese popular religion, providing rituals for all occasions, and adapting
in every possible way to local cults and practice. But at its roots and
source, Taoism too teaches that the spirits of popular religion, and even
the secret registers of Taoist meditation practice, are all to be emptied
from the microcosm in order to be aware of the transcendent Tao.
When the Taoists are called upon to perform popular village ritual of
renewal called Chiao, all of the statues of the popular religion are
taken outside of the temple to a table, (ritual south), or covered and
hidden from view if left inside during ritual. The paradigm of
Chinese temple structure is thus syntactically used as a basis for empty-
ing out all spirits, for an encounter with the Tao. The cleansing of a
void center, the filling of the micro and macrocosm with the generating
power of the Tao, become a visible drama in Taoist ritual.
Taoist's construct a sacred area called a tan 壇, in order to have
audience with the Tao. The sacred area is filled with scrolls depicting
the Heavenly Worthies and sacred spirits proper to tbe Taoist tradition.
This list of spirits that create a pure void space is called a lu 籙 or
register. Only the Taoist knows how to envision and summon these
purifying images. Their scrolls, semiotic signs for eidetic-creative vision,
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are displayed in the interior of the temple, during Taoist
ritual. The members of the community and scholars chosen to join the
Taoists may ask the names of the spirits. But what the people, and fre-
quently the scholar are not told, is that these Taoist spirits too are to be
exorcised, sent forth, and totally eradicated from the Taoist eidetic /
(generative) imagination. Taoist prayer, following the tradition of the
Chuang-tzu and the Lao-tzu, is basically a prayer of kenosis or image
emptying. We may therefore say that the spirits of Taoism and the
goal of true Taoist prayer is an emptying process. Even though the
prayer of the people of China is a filling, asking, and petitionary
process, Taoist ritual makes prayer into a form of giving kenosis.
Taoists respond to the needs of the people by acting out rites of
renewal, healing, burial, and blessing, in the manner of the people, by
asking for material things. Memorials and petitions are read in public,
and sent off to the heavens, earth, and underworld. The names of the
men and women of the community and their needs are read publicly.
The spirits of the folk religion, removed from the void center of the
temple, are addressed in a public courtyard in front of the temple. The
petitions are sent off to heaven by burning, to the earth by burial, and
to the watery underworld by floating on a river. But in fact the goal of
the Taoist of emptying and giving away, and the goal of the people to
gain material wealth and blessing are made one in this process. Imitate
heaven in giving, not earth in grasping, the Taoist sings. The act of
parental - child love of the Confucian system, and the father-mother role
of Tao and nature in the Taoist system, are equally a kenotic - giving
process. Taoist public ritual is a drama visually acting out the syntax
of kenotic giving.
Thus the goals of Chinese religion, and the three teachers of
Chinese religion, differ only in external word and appearance. All three
promote a sense of emptying, compassion, and concern for human feel-
ing. Though Confucius spoke frequently of the "rectification of names,"
(a single connotative meaning) and Buddhism saw name and rea1ity as
empty, in fact the Taoist emptying of name and image, Confucius con-
cern for parent-child bond, and Buddhist compassion are analogies of
the syntaxis of giving by emptying. The act of winning blessing by giving
generously is close to the popular Chinese religious spirit. Just as
parent empties self for child, and child gives self for parent, so too, the
Lao-tzu points out, the Tao eternally empties self , ie, spins breath, ges-
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tates and forms the entire cosmos. The Tao gives wqually to friend and
foe, loved and unloved. These values lie at a deep level of the living
Chinese religious spirit.
