The Encyclopedia of World Religions

China, religions of S 83

(the “Way Power Classic”), this way never acts delib erately, yet it accomplishes everything. Taoists saw action without deliberate intention—in Chinese, wu wei —as the model for human behavior. Applying this principle to government, they suggested that the government that meddles least in the lives of its subjects is the best government. Taoists eventually developed elaborate rituals and experimented with exercises, herbs, and minerals ( see ALCHEMY ) in their search for a long life and immortality. They also formed secret societies that occasionally attempted to overthrow the government. In the centuries following Confucius, yet another set of views, the YIN / YANG THEORY , crys tallized from very ancient roots. It analyzed the universe in terms of the complementary interac tion of two opposites, yin and yang. Among other characteristics, it saw yin as dark, moist, female, and receptive, yang as bright, dry, male, and active. It also identified “five actions” at work in the world: metal, wood, water, fire, earth. The dif ferences between Confucianism and Taoism paral lel to those between yang and yin: Confucianism stresses activity and Taoism receptivity. Just as yang and yin are both necessary, so most Chinese have practiced elements of both religions. BUDDHISM Buddhism first arrived in China around the time of J ESUS (first century C . E .). During the next 500 years it gradually became established, primarily as a tradi tion for MONKS AND NUNS . At first the Chinese resisted Buddhism. The monastic life went counter to the traditional Chinese emphasis on the family, and the Buddhist desire to achieve release from ordinary existence ( see NIRVANA and SAMSARA ) was opposed to the practical orientation dominant in China. By the start of the Tang dynasty (618–906 C . E .), however, Buddhism had become not only the dom inant intellectual tradition but a religion practiced by the people as well. Several different schools flourished. T’ien-t’ai Buddhism classified all the varieties of Buddhism in a graduated scale; it saw the L OTUS S UTRA as encapsulating supreme truth. P URE L AND B UDDHISM taught followers to rely upon the favor of the Buddha Amitabha ( see A MIDA ) and

A VALOKITESVARA , the BODHISATTVA known in China as Kuan-yin. Ch’an Buddhism—better known in North America by its Japanese name, Z EN B UD DHISM —rejected speech and reasoning as distorting truth; it advocated instead a direct, intuitive, inef fable awareness of things as they are. In 845 C . E . the fortunes of Buddhism changed permanently—for the worse. In that year the “Great Persecution” of Buddhism took place, dur ing which more than 40,000 monasteries were destroyed. Chinese Buddhism never recovered from this blow. It did not disappear, but it was never again the leading Chinese religion. During the Buddhist period Confucianism had seemed unsophisticated, because it concentrated so heavily on proper behavior. Starting around 1000 C . E . Neo-Confucians made Confucianism respectable once again. They developed a Confu cian metaphysics (theory of reality) comparable to that of Buddhism and Taoism. At the same time, broad segments of the Chinese population adopted a Confucian outlook. Confucianism again became the dominant Chinese religion. But Confucian ism did not exclude China’s other religious tradi tions. The most common view suggested that all three teachings—Confucianism, Taoism, and Bud dhism—were essentially one. By the late 19th century European colonialism had disrupted the self-confidence of traditional Chinese society. Confucian values seemed weak and outdated. The establishment of the People’s Republic of China, as the Communist regime was called, in 1949 had even harsher consequences, especially at first. Numerous Buddhist and Taoist monks, along with some Christian missionaries, went into exile in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where traditional Chinese religion has been maintained. RELIGION IN COMMUNIST CHINA The relation between religion and Communism in China went through several stages. The first (1950–66) was a time of consolidation, when all foreign influences, including missionaries and many of their followers, were forced into exile. Remaining religious bodies had to form “patri otic” organizations aligning the faith with the