Chinese virtue

Chapter 38 Polytheism and Atheism (2)
The Chinese have forcibly blended different beliefs together, and this has led to two results.First, this behavior goes against China's instinct to abide by order.This characteristic is the most distinctive characteristic of Chinese people, which can be seen from the division of official ranks.China's official ranks are divided according to "ranks". From the first rank to the ninth rank, officials of each rank have different authorities and their symbols are also different.But China's "divine world" does not have such a strict order. If you ask the Chinese "Jade Emperor" or "Tathagata Buddha" who is bigger, you will definitely not get an answer.

In the "Pantheon", the Chinese arranged the gods neatly one by one, but this arrangement is not fixed.In other words, they just placed these statues there randomly, and there was no order relationship.In what the Chinese call the "God Realm," these gods have no hierarchy, and their rights cannot be mutually exclusive.In real society, this chaotic situation is called "anarchism".In the "Three Churches", the order of the three saints is also very confusing.Most people would think that the most respected person should be placed in the middle, and Confucius is undoubtedly the most respected by the Chinese people.Even if it wasn't Confucius, it should be Laozi, because Laozi never claimed to be a god.But the fact is that the one placed in the middle of the "three churches" is the foreign god Tathagata Buddha.There has been a very heated discussion on this issue.

The second result of forcibly blending beliefs together is that the moral nature of people is devalued by these beliefs, just like real money is replaced by counterfeit money.Confucian proverbs have no effect on the ghosts and ghosts mentioned in Taoism, so people are still very afraid of these demons.It is always said that the most superstitious and credulous nation in the world is the Chinese nation, and this sentence is very accurate.In China, many rich businessmen and knowledgeable scholars worship foxes, weasels, hedgehogs, snakes and mice once a month, and draw them on yellow paper and call them "Xian'er", thinking that these animals can influence people. man's fate.

A few years ago, a very famous politician in China knelt down in front of a water snake. According to him, this water snake was the incarnation of a certain official from the previous dynasty, who once calmed the flood of the Yellow River.

I think this water snake would be very honored to be regarded as the incarnation of God.In China, there is such a habit in many places, that is, whenever there is a flood, they will worship the "snake fairy".

In villages near the Yellow River, people even worship ordinary snakes as gods.If the flood recedes, people will do some very interesting things to thank God for his kindness.At that time, the snake will be placed on a tray and carried into temples or other public places, where officials and common people will burn incense and kneel to it every day.In some areas near the river, the river god is also worshiped as the rain god.In the mainland, Guan Gong, the god of war, is also worshiped as a god.In some places, regardless of the distance from the river, Avalokitesvara is worshiped when praying for rain.For the Chinese, these are very reasonable things, because they do not understand the principle that everything in nature is unified.Even if you explain it to them, they won't understand.

There is another matter related to praying for rain, but this matter seems more absurd and interesting.

In the famous Chinese book "Journey to the West", there is a monkey jumping out of a rock, and gradually, the monkey evolved into a human.In some areas, this monkey is worshiped as a god of rain, not a god of rivers or war.From this example, we can fully see that there is no dividing line between China's reality and fantasy, and the two are often confused.

Westerners believe that the cause and effect of things are interrelated.Westerners will never understand the behavior of the Chinese asking for rain from an imaginary monkey, because the Chinese concept of cause and effect is very confused.

Chinese people believe in many gods, how do these Chinese people face these "gods"?

There are two answers to this question: worship and neglect.Some people will calculate the annual expenditure of Chinese people on worshiping gods.They take a certain region as a sample, then count the exact amount, and then calculate the consumption in other regions.But this kind of calculation is meaningless, just like a person who calculates how many mosquitoes there are very seriously, just roughly calculates a few accurate numbers, and then estimates the approximate result.

It is inaccurate to draw conclusions about China as a whole.This can be seen from their going to the temple to worship the gods.A Westerner who landed in Guangzhou, if he saw many pilgrims in the temple and the smoke filled it, he would regard the Chinese as the most blindly worshiped nation in the world.If he has already traveled to the other side of mainland China, he will find that there are many temples that no one visits, even on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar new year, there is not a single pilgrim.Although he could see signs that the temples had been restored, even the locals couldn't tell who had rebuilt them, when and for what.In other places, the population is very dense, but no monks or Taoist priests can be seen for hundreds of miles.In such a place, women and children will not go to the temple to worship, and no one will teach children to worship and pray for blessings.In other places, the ceremony of worshiping gods is integrated into life, and such activities are held almost every day.

China's religion is the same as Hawaii's volcanoes.On many islands in the north and west of Hawaii, traces of volcanic eruptions can only be seen vaguely, but now the volcano has long been silent.In the southeastern islands of Hawaii, the frequency of volcanic eruptions is very high, and it will erupt every once in a while.The same is true of worshiping gods in China. In some remote and ancient places, almost no one goes to worship the Buddha, while in other relatively wild areas, such activities are very popular.But humans are often deceived by this appearance, and end up overestimating their actual intentions.Only by doing more comprehensive research and investigation can we get the correct answer.

Confucius said, "Respect ghosts and gods and keep them at a distance." Confucian scholars also believe that it is the wisest choice to respect and stay away from these "gods" because of Confucius' words.The Chinese are relatively less religiously prejudiced than the Japanese and Mongols.On the lintels of some temples, you can often see such an old saying: "Worship God as if God exists." It is a characteristic of Chinese people to use the word "Ru" to express ambiguous meanings. This characteristic of the gods is brought into full play: worshiping the gods is like a god, but you can come or not.Respect God as if God exists, not to blame God.

Slightly better than "avoiding it" is worshiping the gods in form, and then holding a sacrificial ceremony in a specific way at a specified time, but this behavior is just to gain some benefits.

For the Chinese, "sense of solemnity" seems to be something that has nothing to do with them, and their sacrifices to gods are only superficially put on to give people a sense of piety.The Chinese so-called worshiping the gods is nothing more than a ceremony on a designated day. This kind of worship ceremony is more of a transaction. The person doing the ceremony will get as much money as he pays. How many benefits.Every place humanizes "God" and worships him devoutly, which can best illustrate this problem.If you ask a Chinese who worships "God" why they worship him, you will get this answer: "Because our food, drink and clothing are all given to us by God." Even if the Chinese don't know whether there is "God", But he will still go to worship with most people.The customs left by the ancestors must be right, so everything should be followed.As for whether worshiping "God" is useful, he probably doesn't even know.

Chinese religious ceremonies are always superficial and have no deep meaning.A couplet affixed to a temple pillar is very apt, although it contains a bit of irony.

First couplet: There are no monks in the temple, and the wind sweeps the floor
Second couplet: There are few lanterns and moonlighting in the temple
Chinese people's worship of gods is like western people's dependence on insurance companies.There is a saying that goes well: It is better to believe what you have than to believe what you have not.That is to say, even if there are no such gods, there is no harm in believing; but if these gods do exist and you do not pay attention to them, it may cause the gods to retaliate.The Chinese believe that gods and humans are the same, that they both have certain purposes, and these purposes govern their actions.There is an old saying that those who offer a sheep's head will gain glory and wealth.Those who cannot bestow blessings and well-being to people are considered "poor gods", such as the "Three Emperors".Guanyin Bodhisattva and Guan Erye are noble and wealthy gods, so many people worship and respect them.

Westerners are very opposed to Chinese people's belief in "gods".Because Chinese people's beliefs are all based on "assumptions". They think that believing in God is only good for them, and there will be no harm.They all believe that "if you believe in it, you will have it, if you don't believe it, you will have nothing", just like they said, "if you believe in the emperor, there will be an emperor; if you don't believe in the emperor, there will be no emperor".The Chinese are very receptive to these gods, but they fail to realize it.

We can often see Chinese pilgrims kowtow step by step, which Westerners do not understand very much. This kind of pilgrimage, which takes time, is boring and laborious, is completely meaningless.If you want to ask them why they do this, they will answer that too many people worship gods today and are not pious, and only this way of asceticism can show their sincerity.Putting this situation aside, judging from the behavior of worshiping gods alone, the characteristic of Chinese people's "no integrity" really deserves its name.I happened to see a group photo of monks in a certain temple in Beijing. From this photo, we can see a group of people who are as slippery and cunning as snakes.There is an old saying in China that goes, "A picture is born from the heart", so you can see their way of life from their faces. The kind of face they have is the kind of life they are living.

The Chinese imagine their gods to be like them, and this behavior is the same as that of non-Christians in other countries.I once saw a notice posted in the name of Bodhisattva, telling people: The evil heaven of human beings has learned that the Jade Emperor was very angry, and all the gods were reprimanded by the Jade Emperor, because these gods did not Lead people to be good.The Chinese believe that there are many goblins and gods around everyone, and these gods and goblins are like people and can be bribed, bribed and deceived.Chinese people not only like to bargain when doing business, but they also want to get more benefits when praying to God.He hoped to get good luck by donating money to build a temple, so he donated 250 Wen, but the record in the merit book was indeed [-] Wen.He believes that the gods can only know the amount he donated from the merit book, because the gods were blindfolded with red paper when building the temple.This was done so that the gods would not see the chaos and irreverence.Some temples are built outside the villages, but such temples often become strongholds for thieves to divide their spoils. According to the above statement, as long as the gates are completely closed, the gods can only communicate with heaven and earth.

There is a custom in China that at the end of each year, sticky sugar is used to seal the mouth of the Stove Lord, so that he cannot go to heaven to sue.In some places, when a boy is born, the child is given a girl's name so that the demons and ghosts who eat the baby boy will not snatch the child away.Mr. Bedroux once said that in Sichuan, after a baby girl was drowned, adults would burn some ghost coins to comfort the local gods.Very few women go to temples, except for the Guanyin Temple where women often go to the Guanyin Temple to pray for their children.In some Guanyin temple fairs, baby boys made of clay are placed on shelves. When women burn incense, they will break off the lower body of the "baby boy" and eat it, hoping to give birth to a boy.

Every woman offering incense can take away a clay baby, but she must take it away secretly. If a boy is really born in the future, the woman will bring two clay dolls and place them in the place where the baby boy was once taken as a thank you. The completion of the Bodhisattva has become a local custom.Some seagoers in China believe that all storms on the sea are caused by demons, who lurk underwater and wait for these ships to pass by.Therefore, these people who go to sea will make a paper boat like their own boat when they go out to sea, and throw it into the water when the devil "makes waves" to prevent their own boat from being killed.

There are still some places in China that have this custom. When the plague occurs, people celebrate the New Year in June and July.They thought they could fool the God of Plague into thinking that they had miscalculated the day, so they stopped casting spells and the plague would stop.In this way, people will know why "Qiu Eryue" refers to "forever".The local people also have a way to deceive God, that is, dig a hole on the altar, squat under the altar, and stick out his head from the altar, so that the god will think that he dedicated his head to himself, so he is grateful for his sacrifice. Pious, best of luck to him.Once the sacrifice is over, the person puts his head back under the table and slips back home to wait for good luck.

(End of this chapter)