Religion as Communication by Enzo Pace

Author:Enzo Pace [Pace, Enzo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138252776
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 3.2 The matrix and differentiation in the Chinese religious system

The second important layer was occupied by Taoism. This dates back to the time of the Han dynasty and particularly to the reign of Wen and his son Jing (179–141 BC). Under their reign, the philosophy in the book of Lao-Tzu (a name attributed both to its author and to the text itself, which means Venerable Master) was promoted to the role of imperial ideology. Central to Lao-Tzu’s thinking was the need to educate the governing classes about virtue and spiritual elevation: his book is the object of veneration, almost a holy scripture and the object of meditation and daily recital. The initial tendency to make Taoism the state religion was brought to completion only later on, at the time of the Northern Zhou dynasty (between 557 and 580 AD). The fundamental doctrine always rotates around the simultaneously transcendent and immanent principle called tao, literally the way, path, or principle tending towards infinity, that exists in all things in various and multiple forms, a principle that came even before creation. It is a universal rule that governs the whole universe, an internal order to which all human beings must adapt if they are to aspire to overcome the death of their frail physical body and release their aura so that, after death, it can fly up into the sky where it can finally celebrate its own immortality. Becoming light enough to emerge from the mortal body involves complying with a number of behavioral rules in life that relate to breathing and physical exercise, diet (for example, foods containing cereals are forbidden) and sexual behavior.

The third layer consists of Confucianism, a philosophy and a spiritual wisdom all in one, developed by a master, Confucius (Kong Qiu) (551–479 BC), who had a decisive influence on the formation of the imperial governing classes and the functionalist and hierarchical conception of society: “The king is king and the minister is minister … the father is father and the son is son.” Single individuals have value only as a function of society and their actions must consequently always be oriented to achieve the good of the community.

Finally, the fourth layer is represented by Buddhism, which gradually penetrated into China as of the first century AD, but its definitive expansion dates from the time of the Han dynasty (second century AD), arriving from India along the silk trading routes and other maritime trading routes. The result was that the Chinese learned and adopted many different versions of Buddhism, from the theravada to the mahayana, and even the tantra. Faced with such a complexity, the Chinese Buddhist monks sought to elaborate a more unified view, producing their own original Buddhism as a result, which was called chan (or zen in Japanese). The important element to remember is that Buddhism managed to be successful in an environment shaped for more than 15 centuries by a highly sophisticated civilization that was steeped in philosophy and had its own religious conceptions, based on Confucianism and Taoism.

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