Chinese folk religion
| Yīnyáng 陰陽 motifs | |||
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| ① Yin and yang naturally formed in a log in Germany, and ② in a cosmological diagram as 地 Dì (a mountain growing to Heaven and a square as its order) and Tiān as the Big Dipper. | |||
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| "Chief Star pointing the Dipper" 魁星點斗 Kuíxīng diǎn Dòu | |
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| Kuixing ("Chief Star"), the god of exams, composed of the characters describing the four Confucian virtues (Sìde 四德), standing on the head of the ao (鰲) turtle (an expression for coming first in the examinations), and pointing at the Big Dipper (斗)". |
Chinese folk religion (also known as Chinese popular religion or simply Chinese religion) is the religious tradition of the Chinese, in which government officials and common people of China share religious practices and beliefs, including veneration of forces of nature and ancestors, exorcism of harmful forces, and a belief in the rational order of nature which can be influenced by human beings and their rulers. Worship is devoted to a multiplicity of gods and immortals (神 shén), who can be deities of phenomena, of human behaviour, or progenitors of lineages. Stories regarding some of these gods are collected into the body of Chinese mythology. By the eleventh century (Song period) these practices had been blended with Buddhist ideas of karma (one's own doing) and rebirth, and Taoist teachings about hierarchies of gods, to form the popular religious system which has lasted in many ways until the present day.
Chinese religions have a variety of sources, local forms, founder backgrounds, and ritual and philosophical traditions. Despite this diversity, there is a common core that can be summarised as four theological, cosmological, and moral concepts:Tian (天), Heaven, the transcendent source of moral meaning; qi (气), the breath or energy that animates the universe; jingzu (敬祖), the veneration of ancestors; and bao ying (报应), moral reciprocity; together with two traditional concepts of fate and meaning:ming yun (命运), the personal destiny or burgeoning; and yuan fen (缘分), "fateful coincidence", good and bad chances and potential relationships.Yin and yang (阴阳) is the polarity that describes the order of the universe, held in balance by the interaction of principles of growth (shen) and principles of waning (gui), with yang ("act") usually preferred over yin ("receptiveness") in common religion.Ling (灵), "numen" or "sacred", is the "medium" of the two states and the inchoate order of creation.
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