Nevertheless, the Chinese are essentially practical. Even in their highest flights of fancy, they never quite go beyond the bounds of Reason. Consequently, a Chinese is never as strict in religious observance as, for instance, a devout high-caste Hindu. While the Hindu would rather die than take any food defiled according to his religious belief by the shadow of an outcast, the Chinese would simply cleanse it religiously and then enjoy it as any other good food.
Chinese pragmatism does not argue with fate. Consciously or unconsciously, a Chinese assumes an overruling Providence, to which he resigns himself in moments of supreme crisis. A Chinese has "crisis confidence" in the ultimate reasonableness of Destiny be cause he is himself reasonable. The universe is moral.
Cosmogenic Theory
The Chinese cosmogenic theory assumes that creation takes place when a void of neutrality resolves itself into its components. Taken separately, each component exists; added together, they vanish or coalesce into ONE. The Ultimate Void may resolve itself in any number of ways and the universe is filled with all kinds of existences.
To account for change, two principles are recognized. The Ultimate Void (tai chi) polarizes formally into Yin and Yang. The Yin principle is static, conservative, replenishing, and usually referred to as feminine. The Yang principle is dynamic, progressive, consuming, and usually referred to as masculine. Their relative or recession in any given situation determines the form of change.
The forces acting in any given situation can also be resolved substantively into five influences typified by the elements: water, fire, wood, metal, and earth. Their equilibrium, or any disturbance of it, determines the quality of change.
The concepts of these cosmogenic principles and elemental virtues provide Chinese metaphysics with a theory of the mechanism of Nature. They also form the foundation of many Chinese useful arts and sciences, such as fortune-telling, the search for the elixir of life, transmutation of metals, and Chinese medicine.
Since these elemental influences are interrelated, their equilibrium tends to restrain excess. Points of highest ascension and lowest depression are also points of reversion. Without single-mindedness, there can be no achievement. On the other hand, no single line of thought or action must be pursued to its logical, bitter end. Extremism invariably presages disaster. The Chinese are, therefore, noted for moderation and reasonableness.
Confucius & His Times
Judged by conventional standards, Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was frustrated during his life time. He was denied adequate opportunity to practice his art of government and social reforms. In his old age, Confucius edited several ancient classics, five of them have survived and are known as the books of Odes, History, Changes, and Rites. Revising the history of his native State of Lu, he wrote the Book of Spring and Autumn Annals. The Conspectuses in the Book of Changes are from the Master's own authorship.
Confucius was the first commoner (though of aristocratic lineage) to engage in education, which was formerly a government responsibility. Like Jesus, Confucius gathered a group of disciples around him and taught them by precept and instruction.
Confucius' principal concern was with man and human fellowship. Taken as a whole, Confucianism is more in the nature of an ethical code than a religion or a school of philosophy. As such, it is necessarily this-worldly in outlook and rationalistic in approach. Metaphysical excursions are undertaken in the interest of this central concern.
The ethical aspects of Confucianism are mostly recorded in the Analects and the Ta Hsueh (Great Learning). The latter is systematic and ascribed to Tseng Tze, one of the Master's immediate disciples. According to these records, the basic principle of Confucian ethics is fen-the dynamic principle of being, life, consciousness, and love. In human contexts, the word has been rendered in English as human-heartedness. Tseng Tze defined the unity of Confucius' Way as the way of loyalty and sympathy, that is to say, of being true to one's moral nature and treating others as one should like to be treated.
The aim of "Great Learning" is "to illustrate illustrious virtue, to renovate the people, and to rest in the highest good." There are eight steps to realize this threefold aim: objective investigation, acquiring of knowledge, sincerity of the will, setting the heart right, cultivation of the person, regulation of the family, orderliness in the nation, and peace and equality in the world. The progression is from the head to the heart, from being to doing, and from the immediate to the distant.
The metaphysical aspects of Confucius' teaching found their fullest exposition in Chung Yung (inward centrality and immutability) usually known as the Doctrine of the Mean, written by the Master's own grandson Tze Sse or Tze Sse's disciples. The basic principle is designated in this book as the Spirit of Sincerity which sustains and moves the universe and everything in it. The Chinese word for it is cheng. It is absolute, eternal, and intelligent.
Concept of Truth
A modern scientist approaches Truth as a non-participant. A Confucianist takes the opposite approach. There is communion between the sincerity in man's heart and that of Heaven's Way. The implication is that man and Nature are both spiritual. Therefore, man is able to influence Truth. Thus one reads in Chung Yung, "He who is possessed of the most complete sincerity can give full development to his nature, ..... can assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, ..... and may with Heaven and Earth form a tern ion." "The most complete sincerity is able to foreknow.. and (he who is possessed of it) is like a spirit." Confucian metaphysics approaches religion right here. Its rationalism is in no sense anti-religious.
The Confucian concept of Truth lends itself to many interpretations according to the degree of identifiably of the Supreme Logos, to borrow a Christian term, with human nature. Viewed externally, the Confucian Tao shares some attributes with the Taoist Tao. To pure intellect, it approximates the spirit of modern science. Embraced in the heart, it takes possession of one's soul. This uncertainty of identification stems as much from the Chinese refusal to be overpositive in anything as from the Chinese mentality's firm anchorage on rationalism. Metaphysics is made of logic, and the Chinese are distrustful of too much logic: man can never be sure of his premises and Nature abhors extremism.
Confucianism as it exists means more than what the Master actually taught. It is a constellation of such ideas and practices, stretching from the beginning of history to our own times, as have been purified and held in orbit by his spirit rather than by what the scholars made of it. In fact, Confucian scholars disagree among themselves on some basic concepts, for example: Is man's nature originally good?
According to Mencius (327-289 B. C.), man is naturally good. Speaking of Emperor Shun, (24th - 23rd cc. B.C.), Menci us said, "He walked in benevolence and righteousness; he did not (need to) pursue them." He walked in them because they were in him. There was something Johanine about Mencius.
Nor is goodness innate to sages only. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom are not infused into us from without. We are provided with them by birth-right." Everyone can be as perfect as Emperor Shun.
Hsun Tze (298?-238 B.C.) took a more pessimistic view. To him, man is naturally selfish. Benevolence and righteousness do not proceed of their own accord from human nature. Civil and religious rites, social conventions, law and government exist because of human evil.
Hsun Tze's concern, according to his writings, was with "the transformation of nature and the promotion of artificiality." He defined nature and artificiality in these words: "Human nature is what man knows but cannot learn, and what man does but cannot strive for. That which can be learnt or striven for in the case of man-is artificial"
In short, Mencius emphasized righteousness; Hsun Tze, propriety (rites, conventions). Mencius' outlook was moralistic; Hsun Tze's legalistic. Hence, while the ideal social order of Mencius was democratic; that of Hsun Tze was authoritarian. To Mencius, to educate was to nourish the mind and to liberate innate goodness; to Hsun Tze, it was to discipline and remould human nature. Mencius warms one's heart; Hsun Tze strengthens one hand.
Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism may be considered as the answer of Confucianism to the influences of Taoism and Buddhism. Reason (li) is, to neo-Confucianists, the one universal, ultimate, absolute, positive Principle in which all things have their existence and from which morality derives its goodness. The Way of Heaven, human nature, the heart or mind of man, and the meaning of morality are all to be found in Reason.
Inasmuch as there is a reason for everything, good or evil, Reason is a-moral. Inasmuch as Reason also indicts and rejects (or corrects) evil, Reason is moral. Hence man and the universe are both moral, even though Evil exists side by side with Reason.
There are two schools of neo-Confucianism, the rationalistic and the idealistic. The leading exponent of the rationalists was Chu Hsi (1033-1107) and that of the idealists, Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529). The rationalists hold that Reason is inherent in Nature and that the mind is not equal to Reason. The idealists hold that Reason is not to be sought from without; it is no other than the mind itself.
In ethical application, the rationalists consider the flesh to be a stumbling-block to the soul. Here, one is reminded of St. Paul. The idealists, on the other hand, consider the flesh to be as the soul makes it. One is reminded of Plato; the universe is but an Idea.
Confucianism as a movement refuses to be institutionalized. One does not need permission from anyone to become a Confucianist. Nor is there any ritual of induction. Its lack of organization renders Confucianism weak against organized ideological aggression. The strength of Confucianism is its confidence in Truth, in the validity of moral values, and in the dignity of man. It is less a doctrine than an art of living for the Chinese man-in-the-street with ordinary common-sense. It stands or falls with political liberalism and philosophical laissez faire as against fanaticism and thought-control.
The Confucian social order is loosely organized, with the "family" as its unit. Chinese individualism is tempered with family responsibility. The family takes care of its members in the way modern state does of its citizens. It is their training ground, their public relations agency, their attorney-at-law or legal advisor as the case may be, their savings bank, and their insurance company. A Confucian government costs little and interferes less. In view of their long history and vast population, the Chinese have on the whole enjoyed (except under the Communists) as much de facto democracy as any other people. And in this, Confucianism has been assisted by Taoism.
Taoism Is Earliest Religion
A contemporary (some twenty years senior) to Confucius was Li Erh (6th c. B. C.), generally known as Lao Tze (the old Master). He was the keeper of the Imperial Archives but disappeared westward in his old age beyond the pale of the Middle Kingdom after leaving behind him a little book of profound wisdom of about 5000 words, the Tao Teh Ching (Book of Tao and Virtue), from which Taoism got its name.
Being indigenous to China, both Taoism and Confucianism share an important basic idea. "Does Heaven speak?" asked Confucius. ("The four seasons pursue their course and all things have their being. Does Heaven speak?") Referring to Emperor Shun, Confucius cried out in admiration, "May not Shun be instanced as having governed perfectly without doing anything? All that he did was reverently to seat Himself facing southward (on his throne)!" While Nature's way of acting without action impressed Confucius, Lao Tze made it the foundation of his philosophy. In this he was ably supported by Chuang Chou (Chuaug Tze, 4th c. B. C.). Orthodox Taoism is mainly the joint effort of these two superb thinkers.
Taoism conceives Tao as the mysterious, ultimate, absolute, cosmic principle underlying form, substance, being, and change. It is intelligent, immanent, omnipotent, eternal. It is beyond the power of the mind to comprehend or of words to describe. It is, strictly speaking, unnameable. As Reason is comprehensible, the Taoist Tao differs radically from the Confucian. In its mysticism, the Taoist Tao comes closer to the Christian concept of the Logos, from which, however, it sharply differs in that the former is impersonal and a-moral. It differs from the spirit of modern physical science in that it is consciously mystic.
Application of Taoist Theory
Human application of Taoist philosophy may be summed up in two words, wu wei (inaction). Tao is quiet, motionless, and unfeeling, yet holding absolute sway (like mathematics in the realm of numbers and quantities). "Tao does nothing, yet all things are done (of their own accord in conformity with it)." "He who endeavours, fails; he who, seizes, lets slip." An ideal government is, therefore, "not noticed by the people, ... who simply follow nature."
Avarice and aggression are to be removed at the source by eliminating desire. "There is no sin greater than desire .... There is no fault greater than greed of gain."
This caution is strengthened by the conviction that there is a Principle of Reversion which turns tables. "Weakness conquers strength; the soft overcomes the hard." The Way of Nature is the way of meekness and humility-as exemplified in water, in the female, in the infant, and in the emptiness of the valley. "Tao is a hollow vessel and its use is inexhaustible." "The spirit of the valley" pointed out Lao Tze, "never dies. It is called the mystic female."
Tao deals with the flux of Nature as a whole. Individuals are incidental. "Heaven and earth are unkind," declared Lao Tze. "They treat all things like straw dogs (sacrificial symbols to be burnt after the ritual is over)."
Though Tao is oblivious of individuals, it is accessible to them. Let them abandon them selves to Tao and flow with it, and everything will be possible to them. The simpler their life, the more effortlessly men may realize and flow with Tao. Life, purified of all desire and cleverness is the life of enlightenment, contentment, and harmony.
Taoist epistemology deprecates knowledge. "When knowledge and cleverness appear, there appears hypocrisy." "He who knows who not to know is superior. He who not knowingly knows is (mentally) sick." The Taoist concept of knowledge is, therefore, tentative (like that of a modern scientist's). Tao is unknowable, one's knowledge of it is not Truth, but its blurred reflection in an imperfect mirror.
Nevertheless, for practical purposes, sufficient knowledge of Nature's ways may be obtained through observation and experimentation. With the help of the theories of yin-yang and five elemental virtues, and working on experiences accumulated from the days of the Yellow Emperor (28th c. B. C.), some Taoists in the first century began to seek an elixir of life and experimented with the transmutation of metals. Medicine and metallury received much attention, demonology, necromancy, astrology were probed into, and yoga-like practices gained popularity. Thus Taoism embarked on the road to science on the one hand and religion on the other. Taoist science discovered, for example, the importance of what are not known as hormones and laid the foundation for modern chemistry in the West. Taoist religion gathered up nearly all Chinese superstitions into its fold. To Taoist researchers Tao meant simply technical. know-how.
Later Developments
In the 2nd century Chang Tao-ling organized the Taoist religion into a formal system. He became its first Tien Shih (Heavenly Teacher), a hereditary title with its "papal seat" (since the 11th century) at Dragon-Tiger Mount in Kiangsi Province. The present holder of the title is refugeeing in Taiwan.
The Taoist religion is noted for its polytheism. Everything, from heavenly bodies to the meanest of creatures, from rocks and works of art to ideals and abstractions of the wind, may attain the Tao and be worshipped. A remarkable feature is the fact that the gods and spirits punish the wicked and reward the virtuous by Confucian standards.
The branching out of Taoism into religion, the introduction of Buddhism, and the powerful attack on it by neo-Confucianists, combined to deprive Taoism as a philosophy of its formal following among Chinese scholars. But its influence remains very active and strong. Within the last 20 centuries, no masterpiece of Chinese literature or philosophy is free of Taoist thoughts or phrasing. The Nestorians, too, presented Christianity party in Taoist terminology.
The subtlest of Taoist influences is found in Chinese statecraft. Even the most Confucian of Chinese administrators have in practice done more by creative inaction than much-ado-for-nothing action.
But the most visible effect of Taoism is seen in Chinese art. The reduction of desire and, consequently, of interest in "civilization" weans one from delight in the artificial. Chinese carvings, ceramics, painting, and poetry at their best invariably reveal a Taoist contentment and inspiration, which man finds only in the peace and ecstacy of Nature's Harmony. If Confucianism represents the virtue of Chinese life, Taoism at its purest, represents its poetry.
Taoism was introduced into Taiwan in the 17th century by Koxinga who was subsequently deified as a Taoist god. It branched out into five denominations, viz., Ling Pao, Lao Cheng, Yu Chia, Tien Shih, and Shan Nai. The Taiwan Provincial Taoist Association co-ordinates them into a unified complex. The Association aims at conducting research, preserving Chinese ethics and virtue, and promoting public welfare. The Taoist Anchorite Society provides places for retreat and contemplation.
Many Sects
Taoism as a philosophy has become ramified into innumerable sects. Even Chuang Tze was not quite the same as Lao Tze. He emphasized meaning of quiescence rather than the strength of weakness and humility. His exquisite literary quality has done more than anything else to popularize Taoism among Chinese scholars. The following thinkers owed much to Taoism.
Yang Chu (440-360 B.C.) advocated each individual standing firm on his own rights. Mencius said of him, " ... (Yang Chu) would not sacrifice a single hair in exchange for something which could benefit the entire world." Lieh Tze (3rd century) was an Epicurean exhorting people to enjoy themselves while fate gives them the chance. Wang Pi (226-249) led the way to re-interpretation of wu (the property of nothingness of Tao) in a positive sense. The Ultimate Void, so to speak, is not zero; it is pregnant with Pure Being. He was a Confucianist Commentator of Lao Tze and Chuang Tze and therefore not a Taoist himself. Yuan Tai (210-263) and Chi Kang (223-262) started a movement of Pure Conversationism which lasted about four centuries. The Conversationalists were almost Bohemian in their freedom from conventional respectability and vulgar care. They were elegant and sophisticated, ever ready with wit and insight to embellish life and conversation. From Shen Pu Hai (4th c. B.C.) and Han Tei (3rd c. B.C.) descended the Chinese Dracos and Machiavellis on Taoist inspiration. To them since "Heaven and Earth are unkind," the end justifies the means. One could classify Sovietized Communism, had it originated in China, as an extreme type of perverse, non-mystic authoritarian Taoism which had turned a blind eye to the principles of inaction and reversion.
Buddhism Imported Into China
It is uncertain how early China first heard of the Buddha and his teaching. Authentic history of Buddhism in China began when Ming Ti (second emperor of the East Han Dynasty) sent a mission in 65 A.D. to "the western regions" to find out more about it. The mission returned in six years from Khotan and brought along some Buddhist monks, classics (sutras), and ikons. The exchange of scholars between China and India extending over seven centuries included such giants as Kumarajiva (4th century A.D.), Fa Hsien (5th cent.), Bodhidharma (6th cent.), and Hsuan Chuang (7th cent.) The literary excellence of the Chinese translations of the sutras procured from India during these years powerfully helped to interest Chinese scholars of Coufucian and Taoist persuasions in this alien cult and its philosophy.
Siddhartha Gautama (560-480 B.C.), son of king of the Sakyas in northern India, was distressed by the misery of mankind and the inadequacy of Hinduism for its radical relief. He decided to probe into the secret of suffering and to pioneer a path leading to the surcease of pain and misery. It is believed that after meditating long and deeply under a tree, now known as the Bohi-tree, in Bodhgaya, he came into complete spiritual enlightenment and a state of ecstacy. He had a foretaste of Nirvana—the extinction of individuality by its absorption into the One Universal Supreme Spirit—and felt convinced that he was now beyond suffering, beyond the transmigration of souls. In other words he was now the Buddha, the Enlightened One.
A group of disciples gradually gathered about him and a religious order known as the Sangha was founded. All followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, destroy no life, tell no untruth, take no intoxicants, and do nothing to excite their own or other people's carnal desires. Those who are ordained as monks or nuns must renounce both the world and their homes, and take "refuge" in the Buddha, in the Dharma (the Law), and in the Sangha. They claim personal ownership of nothing and take nothing except what is given them.
Buddhist sutras comprise three categories the Vinaya-pitaka (discipline), the Sutta-pitaka ( discourses ), and the Abhidhamma-pitaka (higher doctrine), collectively referred to as the Tri-pitaka the threefold basket, (or san tsang in Chinese). A reprint of Buddhist classics in the Chinese language had just been completed and published this year (1959). It is a library of more than 13,000 treatises or chapters.
Basic Metaphysics
The basis of Buddhist metaphysics in Gautama's analysis of suffering. In his famous Deer Park sermons, Gautama told the assembled bhikkus (monks) that: "Birth is suffering; decay (old age) is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering. The presence of objects one hates is suffering; separation from objects one loves is suffering. Briefly, ... clinging to existence is suffering." The three-fold thirst for existence, prosperity, and pleasure (the will to live and enjoy) leads to re-birth and each re-birth means a renewed cycle of the sufferings enumerated above. It follows, therefore, that the cessation of this thirst removes the cause of suffering by escaping re-birth. Gautama indicated an Eight-fold Noble Path leading to this goal and defined it as the path of right belief, right purpose, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right endeavour, mindfulness, and right meditation.
Awaiting one at the other end of the Path is arathood. An arat is one who has attained higher insight (sambodhi) and is ready for Nirvana. In short, the Path leads to individual salvation. When Buddhism concerns itself with individual salvation only, it is Hinavana (little chariot). When it transcends the limits of individual salvation and concerns itself with the spiritual welfare of all, it is then Mahayana (big chariot). Thus a Hinayanist aims to be saved while a Mahayanist aims to be a saviour as well. This audacious "career" is justified on the ground that everyone is a potential Buddha. All the Buddhas—past, present, and yet to come-are really one. They are united in Universal Buddha-reality which is dedicated to universal salvation.
The Buddhist conception of salvation involves the problem of remission of sin. According to Hinduism, the Wheel of Law exacts justice through all transmigrations. No remission of sin is possible. Buddhism, on the other hand, by suspending transmigration, implies that sin may be remitted. Its possibility rests on the Buddhist conception of reality, physical or metaphysical.
Buddhism, particularly since the first century A.D., has produced subtle arguments denying the reality of things. For example, personality according to the Madhyamika School (2nd cent.) is but an ever-changing loose aggregate of skandhas (states of being which are themselves constantly changing), namely, the body, the feelings, the conceptual knowledge (based upon sense-perceptions which are limited and relative), the sankharas instinct plus the subconscious), and reason. When these five states of being disperse, death results.
The soul that transmigrates is not an in destructible, continuing entity but merely a pattern, a potential, a force that fashions the re-born soul. Just as nothing passes from the foot to the wet earth when an impression is made, so nothing real passes from one trans-migration to the next. The soul finds its only reality in the universal Buddhahood.
A similar analysis resolves external reality to everchanging, loose aggregates of changing elements known as dharmas which have no absolute reality but appear to be real, relative to one's consciousness. The real Reality behind appearances — behind the world, the Buddha, the Karms, and transmigration — is ineffable. (One is here reminded of the Laotzian Tao and the Kantian transcendental idealism.) Only minds unclouded with ignorance (knowledge based on effables) can comprehand Paramartha-saty (Absolute Truth). Other minds can only comprehend relative truths.
Intuitive School
In China this philosophy gave rise, among others, to the intuitive school known as Ch'an Tsung, reputedly founded by Bodhidharma (6th cent.) The school's fifth Tsu (grandfather, spiritual head) Hung Jen (7th cent.) was looking for his successor when a disciple of his, Sheng Hsiu, summed up Ch'an Buddhism in four lines:
"(Take care of) the body like a Bodhi-tree,
And the mind like a bright mirror of metal.
Diligently tend the one and polish the other,
Lest dust on them should gather and settle."
A laboring monk, Huei Neng by name, doing menial work in the kitchen, admired the stanza and composed one of his own in answer thus;
"The Bobhi-tree is in reality not a tree,
Nor the bright mirror a mirror of metal.
They are but nothingness in themselves,
On what, then, can dust gather and settle?"
To Sheng Hsiu, there is something in one which either sins or acquires spiritual merit. To Huei Neng, persons, sins, and merits are all phantasies of consciousness. The true self is ineffable, it cannot be said to exist, for it lacks positive attributes; nor not to exist, for it likewise lacks negative attributes. To Sheng Hsiu, merit wipes out sin; to Huei Neng, merit and sin and the false self disappear like a dream on the awakening of the true self in the Enlightenment of Buddha-reality, which is also ineffable .
Huei Neng was chosen to be the school's sixth spiritual head. Sheng Hsiu preached gradual enlightenment in North China, hence the name Northern Tsung. Huei Neng taught in South China and aimed at sudden enlightenment. His is the orthodox Ch'an Buddhism to most Chinese, though it is technically the Southern Tsung.
Absolute Truth, being ineffable, cannot be described in words or pictured in images. It can only be comprehended by the mind in its purest state in meditation, that is, by the inward contemplation of the Buddha-reality in one's own heart. In fact the word Ch'an (Zen in Japanese), derived from Sanskrit dhyana, means intuitive contemplation. Ch'an Enlightenment is in this respect almost the equivalent of the Inner Light of the Quakers (Christian).
While the Ch'an School discredits external aids—books, sermons, rituals, even Buddhas (as distinct from Buddha-reality)—and directs its appeal straight to the heart without recourse to the use of words the True Word School (Chen Yen Tsung) takes a different view. It believes that the words of the Buddha have hidden in them mystic power which can be invoked to work miracles. Chanting certain sutras, for instance, when repeated faithfully and often, will secure the release of a condemned soul from hell. Evil spirits will stay away from where the sutras are kept. The monks and nuns one sees chanting sutras or invocations, to the accompaniment of music, in Buddhist temples or at Chinese funerals, etc., are mostly True Word devotees. The power of True Words is also available to laymen. As a philosophy it represents supernaturalism.
The Buddhist school that advocates salvation by faith is known as Ching T'u Tsung (the Pure Land School). Whenever the mind is free to think and the voice free to invoke "Nahmo Omito Fo (Hail, Amitabha Buddha)," one should so think and invoke all the time one can spare. Everywhere one goes in China, one hears this invocation and sees it in print or carved on rocks. The mind being concentrated on the Buddha is freed from carnal desire and thus conditioned for steadfast faith in the Buddha's saving grace which he freely offers to all who humbly believe. Faith provides for them a short-cut to the Pure Land of eternal blessing. An earnest devotee's soul is transported there immediately upon his physical demise. By faith he is delivered from the Karma and transmigration. Salvation is almost Christian in the this respect. The Pure Land invocations differ from the Pure Word ones in that the former are but prayers and not, as are the latter, parcelled supernatural power.
While Omito Fo gives away his divine grace to save souls, the Goddess Kuan Yin (Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva) takes pity on mankind's sufferings in this life. The Goddess, out of her illimitable compassion, has deliberately, it is believed, postponed Nirvana and the attainment of Buddhahood so that her accumulated and accumulating merits should be available as the price of writing off our worldly suffering. The Goddess is by far the most widely worshipped deity in all China.
Other Buddhist Schools
It is impossible to describe here all the schools of Buddhism in China. Mention, however, must be made of T'ien Tai Tsung, named after its chief seat of teaching. This school grew out of Ch'an Tsung but actually represents a return, in part at least, to the rationalistic approach to enlightenment and salvation. Its principal contribution is the recognition of variation in individual needs. To some enlightenment comes suddenly, by intuition, through meditation. To others· it comes gradually, by study, through tending the Bodhi-tree and polishing the mirror. Since Gautama first taught the Hinayana, then the Mahayana, and finally the "Lotus of the True Law" which harmonizes the other two, the Lotus is the favorite text of T'ien Tai Buddhists. Remarkable goodwill subsists among the Buddhist communities, irrespective of the schools to which they belong. All Buddhist roads lead to the Buddha himself. The credit of this harmony largely goes to the influence of T'ien Tai Buddhism.
There were about 5,000,000 Buddhist monks and nuns in China before 1910. The wars and revolutions since that year have tended to increase their number, but the politico-economical pressure of the Communists has forced many Buddhists to return to at least outward laity. The present total membership of Buddhist orders on the mainland is therefore not known. Official estimates vary between 4,300,000 and 4,500,000. In Taiwan, there are today (1959) 354 monks and 482 nuns distributed in 881 monasteries and nunneries.
The importance of Buddhism is not its numerical strength. Even the most matter-of-fact man in China who professes no religion at all is an unconscious Buddhist. The Buddhist attitude to life and its sense of value are in the blood he inherits and the air he breathes. Chinese painting, sculpture, music, architecture, literature, and philosophy often show clear evidence of Buddhist influence. As a religion, with its three-fold promise of salvation by merit, by faith, and by the inner light, Buddhism has established a hold on the Chinese people so strong that even the Communists are finding it impossible to destroy it. As an ideology, with its idealism and technique of abstract analysis, Buddhism in conjunction with Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity, is a force so fundamentally opposed to ultra-materialism that the Buddhists are confident of even a brighter future for it as a vital factor in the composition of Chinese culture which is bound to survive and grow.