On first acquaintance China's religious life seems complicated and conflicting, with temples full of confusing ornaments and worshippers dividing their devotion between Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. In fact, the Chinese have traditionally treated religion as a practical feature of everyday life.

When you see adorer in a temple, praying, lighting joss sticks or shaking fortune-sticks from a canister, you can be fairly sure that they are asking the gods for such benefits as medical help, wealth, the birth of a son and good luck. Although many modern Chinese would deny any religious belief, most of them acknowledge the balancing power of yin and yang, the dark, feminine negative and the light, masculine positive forces that make it possible to accept the bad times along with the good.

Confucianism

Confucianism dated back some two thousand years,despite not being a formal religion is practiced widely throughout the country.Although there are temples and monasteries dedicated to the fifth-century BC sage, Confucius (Kong Zi) is revered not as a god but a great man whose system of ethics shaped Chinese society for many centuries.Confucius believed that a successful society had to be regulated according to duties and privileges, so he devised a hierarchy of responsibility based on social realities. Thus a ruler was to be obeyed but he also had to take care of his people. In like manner, men had moral duties to their wives and children, who responded with loyalty and devotion. Although this could lead to stifling conformity, the system did create a civil service of educated, usually competent and mostly honest men. It also enshrined the practice of filial piety, which was a key factor in both Buddhism and Daoism.

Daoism

Daoism (Taoism) is a Chinese religious tradition in the process of being transmitted and adapted to a global context. On the most basic level, "Daoism" refers to an indigenous Chinese religious tradition(s) in which reverence for and veneration of the Dao (Tao), translatable as both the Way and a way, is a matter of ultimate concern. In contrast to adherents of other Chinese religious and cultural traditions, Daoists (Taoists) understand the Dao as Source of all that is, unnamable mystery, all-pervading numinosity, and the cosmological process which is the universe. The Dao is impersonal and simultaneously immanent and transcendent. Broadly understood, the point of a Daoist way of life is to cultivate alignment and attunement with the Dao.

 

Daoism is a Chinese religious tradition. Daoism is Chinese because it originates in Chinese culture and, in some sense, because it is most clearly understood through the Chinese language and views of being. Daoism is a "religion" because it involves an orientation towards and relationship with the sacred. Daoism is a "tradition" because it is a community of dedicated practitioners connected to each other as a historical and energetic continuum. 

 

At the same time, Daoism is now being transmitted and adapted to a global context. Daoism is no longer simply a Chinese religious tradition. It is now a global religious and cultural phenomenon(a), existing in Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Italy, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam and practiced by people of a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. It is also slowly becoming established in the United States in various forms, with varying degrees of connection with the earlier Chinese religious tradition. Without an understanding of such historical precedents, Daoism in the West will simply be a fabrication, a fiction, and a fantasy. This does not mean that there should not be adaptation and modification; change necessarily occurs when a religious tradition enters a new cultural context and when religious practitioners have different concerns and motivations. But it does mean that without a connection and collective memory such "innovations" become meaningless names.

 

The Daoist tradition is a community of practitioners connected to each other as a historical and energetic continuum. Daoists are those for whom cultivating the Dao (xiudao 修道) is their most important orientation.

 

The identity of Daoists derives from their being and presence. One is a Daoist based on the extent to which one is aligned with and embodies the Dao in its multi-layered numinosity. One is Daoist based on the extent to which one embodies Daoist principles and follows a Daoist way of life.

 

Daoist identity does not come from some supposed "orthodoxy" associated with Zhang Daoling, the receipt of registers, "religious licenses", and/or some magico-ritual performance. This is the provenance of certain Daoist priests, which must be recognized as one way among many revealed by the historical contours of the Daoist tradition. The models of Daoist practice-realization, established, modified, and confirmed through some 2000 years of history, are many and varied.

 

Daoists recognize the Dao as Source, all-pervading mystery, and immanent numinosity. The immanent numinosity of the Dao pervades one's being; it is one's innate nature and innate capacities. Throughout Daoist history, the Dao has become manifest through the revelations of specific deities and immortals, through their interaction with and self-disclosure to human beings. From the perspective of classical Daoist "theology", based on emanation and immanence, such divine beings are embodiments of the Dao.

 

Buddhism

Lamaism, a Buddhist sect, has its followers mostly among the Tibetan, Mongolian, Tus and Yugur. Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle Buddhism, has believers mainly among such ethnic groups as the Bai, Dai, Deang, Achang, Blang, Jingpo and some of the Va.

The arrival of Buddhism in China via the Silk Road in the 2nd century BC, and found a ready public. It attracted scholars with its classical literature and artists with its high regard for sculpture and painting. It also drew those who wanted to renounce the world of the senses in remote monasteries and nunneries, where the faithful could spend his or her years in meditation and prayer.

Other religions:

Among other religions practiced in China, Islam has the greatest number of followers. They are mostly concentrated in the northwest regions of Xinjiang, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, although there are also Moslem communities in Xian, Beijing and Guangzhou.Islam has a following among ten ethnic groups -- the Hui, Uygur, Kazak, Tatar, Kirgiz, Tajik, Ozbek, Dongxiang, Salar and Bonan.

Christianity never achieved a wide acceptance in China and appealed mostly to Westernized intellectuals.Protestantism found converts among the Miao and Yi, and some ethnic minorities living in western Yunnan. Believers in the Orthodox Eastern Church are found among the small groups of Russian and Ewenki.There are some three million Catholics in China. Most belong to the state-approved church, while a minority recognize the Pope as their leader.