REL 333 Week 4
World Religious Traditions I

– Should have e-mailed to me your Eastern
Religious Matrix by now
– Your learning teams should be working on the final assignment due next week too.:
TEAM
LEARNING
– Time: 5 Hours (All time indications throughout the syllabus are for on-ground students.)
• Review the objectives from Week Four and discuss additional insights and questions that may have arisen.
• Eastern Religions Learning Team Final Presentation and Paper (due Week Five) APA
– Each Learning Team will complete a paper and presentation about the impact of a contemporary expression of an Eastern religious tradition on a particular society. The following is a list of questions to consider:
– What role do Eastern religious traditions play in modern medicine?
– What impact has Hinduism had on modern India’s society?
– How is the practice of Buddhism expressed in the United States?
– What is the state and practice of ancient Chinese religious traditions in Communist China?
– The paper and presentation should focus on how the societal views of spirituality and religion have been influenced, and how social and political life has been impacted by the selected Eastern religious tradition, then compare and contrast the selected religion to at least one other studied in this course.
– The paper should consist of 2,100-2,450 words . The Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation should comprise 10-12 slides (with narrator notes if they are available) The project must include at least five references in addition to the textbook. Both the Final Paper and the Presentation are due in Week Five.

• Trace the historical development of Taoism,
Confucianism, and Shinto
• Examine the significance and meaning of ritual, symbols, myths, and sacred texts in
Taoism, Confucianism, and
Shinto

–Taoism; a way of studying and systematizing human life as well as natural life
–Nature observations and emulation are foremost

• Ancestor Worship
– Divination
• I Ching (Book of Changes)
– Supreme Deity
• Shang-ti
• Holy Mother in Heaven (guardian of the seas)

Taoism
• Lao-tzu
• Lived approx
600 BCE
Was a court archivist and a contemporary of
Confucius
Chuang-Tzu

–‘went west.’
–The gatekeeper and the Tao-teching
–Supposedly lived for hundreds of years

“The Tao that can be named, that is not the
Absolute Tao.”
• Tao-te-ching – ‘The Way and the Power’
– About 5000 words
– Poetic
– Begins by saying that nothing can be adequately said about the Tao.
– Calls for a return to nature and its source (the Tao)
– Downplays formal learning
– Asserts natural wonder and the harmonization of nature and humanity

• Blends temple worship, private devotion, meditation, breathing, and physical techniques.
• Also incorporates alchemy, yoga, good deeds, shamans, superstition, and occult magical practices
• One goal is to become immortal

• Tai-Chi
– Body movements, breathing and relaxed concentration
– Designed to draw chi from the universe and stimulate its flow through the body
• Feng Shui – (‘Wind and water’)
• http://www.artoffengshuiinc.com/

Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

• Wu-wei – ‘non-action.’
• Harmony –
– ‘the more forcing, the more trouble…’
• Wu-hsin – ‘no-mind’

• "While Eeyore frets ...
... and Piglet hesitates
... and Rabbit calculates
... and Owl pontificates
...Pooh just is.”
• "Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes,"said Piglet, "Rabit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."

• Tao-te-ching – ‘The Way and the Power’
“The Tao that can be named, that is not the
Absolute Tao.”
– About 5000 words
– Poetic
– Begins by saying that nothing can be adequately said about the
Tao.
– Calls for a return to nature and its source (the Tao)
– Downplays formal learning
– Asserts natural wonder and the harmonization of nature and humanity
• most translated after the Bible
– Oral Tradition
– Very Ancient
– Written by Lao Tzu (?)

• To study the order and system of natural life so that one can order ones own life to move with the flow.
The path will necessarily weave as the cosmos around you changing
– Requires great mental and physical discipline

• Experience the transcendent unity in all things, not separation
• reconcile opposites on a higher level of consciousness
– Everything has it’s place and function in life
• no good or bad, small or large, disfigured or beautiful

continued
– Experience the universe that is directly
• cooperating with the ways things are, not making judgments, setting standards of morality, not labeling
– Three in the Morning

– A Taoist has a low profile in the world
• like a valley, allowing things to flow into life, like a stream
• Not working for recognition, doing it because it is their function to do it
• nourishes the “ten thousand things” of material life
• No possession of accomplishments, works effortlessly

– Flowing Water
• Water doesn’t fruitlessly attack
– effortlessly flows around and over, gently removing obstacles

–nothing contrary to nature
–not expending unnecessary energy
• non-interference
–nothing is evil, things are just out of balance
»Civilization with rigid views on morality, and intellectual attempt to improve what is generates chaos

• Very similar to Hindu meditation practice
–Ching - generative force
–Ch’i - vitality
–shen - spirit
• management of ones “life-force” is
VERY important

• I Ching
• Life is chaotic, sometimes answers don’t come
– the brick wall scenario
• with meditation, washing, ask your question
– a direct line to the spirit world
– T’ai-chi chuan
– Philosophical vs. Popular Taoism
• Search for Elixir of Immortality

Qin Shi Huang Di

• Some Taoists have priests, deities, and so on
– Eight Immortals
• humans who gained immortality with their own magic powers
– Hsien
• numerous gods
• ancestral spirits
• magic making
• ritual
• priests

• Zuang Guolao
• Zhong-Li Quan
• Han Xiang-Zi

• He Xian-Gu
• Lan Cai-He
• Li Tie-Guai

• Lu Dong-Bin
• Cao Guo-Jui
From: http://www.asianartmall.com/8immortalsarticle.htm

551-479 BC
Confucius

Confucius, the Buddha, and Lao Tzu
Tasting Vinegar

• Kung Fu-tzu (Master K’ung)
– Teachings called Juchiao (“the teaching of the scholars”)
– Life Story
• Gentleman Scholar
• Jen (“human-heartedness, humanity)
• Golden Rule
• Social Hierarchy
• Rituals – Li
• Filial Piety - Yi
• Ancestor Worship
• Mencius – Mandate of Heaven

traditions, applied his own wisdom, and put things in many small sayings that were easy to remember
• Emphasized rituals as the way to preserve order in society

• Tradition
• Jen
• Li
• Veneration of ancestors
– Food and wine offerings
– Silent prostrations at ancestral temples, gravesites, and homes

• Five Classics
• I Ching
• Book of History
• Classic of Rites
• Spring and Autumn Annals
• Four Later Books
– Analects of Confucius
– Book of Mencius
– The Great Learning
– The Doctrine of the Mean

Poem on Mountain – Ming Dynasty

Wu Dao-Zi – Tang Dynasty

Han-Gan White Horse – Tang Dynasty With Poem from the
Emperor in 1746

Female (Left) and Male (Right) Lions Guarding the Residences

:
神道

• Originated in Japan
• Has no ‘founder’
• Came to be known as Shinto in response to incursion of Buddhism

• Shinto
• State Shinto
• Kami
• Torii
• Ki
• Aikido
• Amaterasu
• Hirohito

• Kami
• misogi ,
• Kinship with
– nature
• Purity
• Purification
– Rituals

• The indigenous religion of Japan (790 AD)
– no name until Buddhism arrived
• used by governments to inspire nationalism
– returned to grassroots after war and separation of Church and state
• People of the land
– agricultural
• plant, tend, harvest
– sun and moon cycles
– Spr. - Summer - Fall - Winter cycle
– Mount Fuji is sacred embodiment of divine creativity
• land thrust up from the sea
• Fuji-san is it’s name
– friendship and intimacy
– Simplicity and naturalness are the honored traits

• The divine
– Kamikaze - divine wind
• Spirits, any type
– the kami are EVERYWHERE
• Shrines to honor them
• Groves of trees
• always an enclosure to show where the Holy begins
– torii - tall gate frames
– bridges over streams
» water is particularly cleansing
» places provided to wash
• public hall - offering hall - sacred sanctuary
– only High Priest goes to the latter
» priesthood is often hereditary, takes years to learn all of the nuances
• no images in worship, all is in nature

continued
• Home worship too
– a high shelf with a shrine
• generally only a mirror inside
– greet sun with clapping and prayer, and offerings
» Rice - health
» Water - cleansing and preservation of life
» Salt - harmonious seasoning of life
– by daily incorporating the worship of the kami into everyday life one will be in harmony with nature

• No sin in Shinto
– Good and evil distinctions are for lesser people
– world is a beautiful, enjoyable place
– Sexuality is not bad per se
• communal bathing is traditional
• Impurity is cause of misfortune
– tsumi;
• unkind interaction among humans
• corpses
• menstruation
• humans interacting against nature
• natural disasters

continued
No repentance required. Purification required
• physical - I.e. washing with water
• spiritual - I.e. and enlightening moment
– unity of universe
– oharai
• stick of wood from sacred tree with white streamers attached
– kami wind, remember?

• Shinto for life events, Buddhism for death events
• Often the two are worshipped side by side
– theologies are very different

• Hierarchy
• social cohesion
• alliance was formed to attempt to overthrow the
Buddhist influence

• Emperor Meiji
– Shinto became spiritual basis for government
– Emperor was long thought to be the offspring of the sun goddess
• imperial family would almost always consult the shrine to the sun goddess for matters of importance.
– Way of the kami should govern the nation
• administered by government officials
– priests were suppressed and/or done away with
• tool to enlist popular nationalism
– Emperor was a God, worthy of protection, and Japan should expand

– Eternal life-force
• ch’i
– Self-generating
– Yin and Yang
• yin = female, dark, receptive
• yang = male, bright, assertive
– wisdom is in recognizing their ever shifting, always in balance cycle. The follower will flow with these cycles.
» The cycle is called the TAO (the way)

Prayers and notes on a Shinto shrine

• Important Taoist
– Butterfly Story:
Chuang-Tzu once dreamed he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he no longer knew if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man, or a man who had dreamed he
was a butterfly.

• Japanese in origin
– Strictly a Japanese order
• Confucianism - informs organizations and ethics
• Buddhism and Christianity - ways to understand suffering and afterlife
• Shinto - living in harmony with the natural world

continued
• Hirohito
– Meiji’ grandson
• thought to be a God
– Declared himself human at the end of
WWII
• thus sending Japan headlong into our century…

• Non-proselytizing
• nature oriented
• relationship oriented
• A good example of the definition of an indigenous religion
– for so it is...

I.
Questions:

II. Philosophy of Religion
A. Philosophy of religion is NOT meant to convert students or to trigger emotional arguments between students with differing beliefs
B. Philosophical study of religion is meant to enable students to expand understanding, think critically, and reflect on the nature of their own religious beliefs
C. In principle, there is no reason that philosophy, science, and religion cannot coexist

1. Teach about ourselves (explain origins)
2. Provide explanations
3. Provide examples or models of behavior
4. Create meaning for yourself
5. Entertainment (social solidarity)

1. Sympathetic (participant-observer): feel for
2. Dispassionate (apathetic): feel not
3. Normative (antipathetic): feel against
4. Empathetic (Understanding through acquaintance): feel within
5. Analytical: study and do critical analysis of the claims of the religion

From Ninian Smart (
10-21.)
1. Ritual (Practice)
The World Religions (1989):
2. Experiential ( mysterium tremendum et fascionosans ; emotional)
3. Mythic (Stories/narratives with sacred significance)
4. Doctrinal (beliefs; philosophies)
5. Ethical (commandments; actions; legal)
6. Social (Institutional; Community)
7. Material (Artistic)
8. Historical: real live events