daojiao and kenosis

[Riyue]

Yesterday i have read in Saso's book "Blue Dragon White Tiger"...

At page 22 i found his statements about kenosis in daoism.

...all gods and spirits of popular religion are to be removed from temple if possible (or covered) ... for purpose to approach Dao...

What are your thoughts about this?

[Mak_Tin_Si]

VERY DIS-RESPECTFUL

 

and the writter is not a TAOIST for sure.

 

 

Yesterday i have read in Saso's book "Blue Dragon White Tiger"...

At page 22 i found his statements about kenosis in daoism.

...all gods and spirits of popular religion are to be removed from temple if possible (or covered) ... for purpose to approach Dao...

What are your thoughts about this?

[YMWong]

Yesterday i have read in Saso's book "Blue Dragon White Tiger"...

At page 22 i found his statements about kenosis in daoism.

...all gods and spirits of popular religion are to be removed from temple if possible (or covered) ... for purpose to approach Dao...

What are your thoughts about this?

 

That selective quoting out of context is misleading

 

YM

[Riyue]

That selective quoting out of context is misleading

 

YM

 

Sorry for misleading.

 

Here more:

...

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-

 

23

 

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.

[YMWong]

Thank you, Riyue, that was an excellent passage from Prof. Saso.

And, yes, that's the way of Chinese Daoism.

 

YM

[Riyue]

Thank you, Riyue, that was an excellent passage from Prof. Saso.

And, yes, that's the way of Chinese Daoism.

 

YM

reading the original version i hope Mak_Tin_ Si can revise his first statement...

this book is a fine resource...

[Anabhogya-Carya]

VERY DIS-RESPECTFUL

 

and the writter is not a TAOIST for sure.

 

why don't you just cast a spell on him? use your TAOIST magic powers! sends these idol covering blasphemers to dammnation!

 

Also, in a more proper manner.. that was very interesting. Thank you for the wonderful read.

Edited November 30, 2008 by Anabhogya-Carya