Compare and Contrast Kami and Shen, the Japanese and Chinese Words for God

Selections from the Shu Jing (The Classic of History) (6th Cent. BC) is a document that was written by the Confucius. The classic of history is one of the Confucian classics, and it's was written during the Zhou era when Yi yin looked forward in constructing a young king into a better king with knowledge of the mandate of heaven the mandate of Heaven. The article is about the emperors who had different techniques of dealing the situations and showing their care for the people of the dynasty. For example, the first Xia's king was generous and kind to people while the king of Shang was cruel to his people. Besides, it's about how the mandate of heaven began back then and how people become to know about the mandate of

James lists four qualifiers of mystical experiences: ineffability (a state that defies description), noetic quality (revelations of universal and eternal truths), transiency (a brief but profoundly important experience) and passivity (a feeling of being taken over by a superior authority).

Shintoism: The Way of the Kami. Israel defines Kami as spirits that affiliate with natural objects such as the sun and the moon. In the opening of Buddha in the Land of the Kami, the narrator shares the historical background of the Kami, stating that a spiritual duo came down to Earth to stir up the sea waters, creating the archipelago of Japan. The sprits figure out reproduction and multiply, inhabiting the chain of Islands known as Japan. The narrators also mention the Kami in mountains, wind, grass and other natural entities. According to the film, spiritual rituals performed in earlier eras show continuity in Shinto shrines today. Israel explains that later, during the Asuka-Nara Period, The Yamato high courts establish a system that would monitor Shinto shrines. “The Yomato court developed a centralized

In Chinese culture, health and illness concentrates on the balance between body, mind, and spirit, expressed as Yin Yang. It symbolizes the idea that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There is a belief in part of the Chinese culture, that a physical illness is caused by an imbalance of Yin Yang.

The human heart: abode to the substance of human life, known as the teyolia. The teyolia was affiliated with the world above the earth, it is also the only spirit to travel to the afterlife. The teyolia was considered transcendent, and to be used in the creation of another being. The human brain: abode of the drive of love and heat, known as tonalli. The tonalli was affiliated with the highest heavens of creation. The brain was turned to ashes and put in a box with a tuft of hair to be kept by the family. The human liver: abode to courage, the soul and the engine of passions, but also the force of cold. This was known as ihiyotl. Ihiyotl was dispersed after death in winds, spirits and illnesses, and was affiliated with the underworld. After death, every human being had a service, tasked by the gods, in the cosmic process. The departed did these services to help keep humanity alive. (Ian Mursell)

To start with, the ancient Mesopotamians and Chinese had fairly similar religious beliefs. Both were polytheistic, and their gods were anthropomorphic. The Chinese, however, primarily worshipped a supreme god. The first was Di and the second was Tian, a more benevolent god. In Mesopotamia, there were high priests and temples to preform religious rituals, while the common Chinese belief was that only the ruler could communicate with the supreme god through their ancestors. Alternatively, two relevant ideals present in both societies was the belief an afterlife, as shown through the possessions left in tombs, and the thought that gods demonstrated anger through natural disasters. The Chinese, especially, valued the idea of gods using natural disasters to show disapproval in the current ruler, and called it the “Mandate of Heaven”.

The region of China is extensive and profound. “In China lay people did not belong to an institutionalized sect, nor did their religious life have anything to do with signing articles of faint. Religion in China was so woven into the broad fabric of family and social life that there was not even a special word for it until modern times, when one was coined to match the Western term” (Thompson, 1). In China, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism are all blended. In the earliest period, Shang Dynasty (2000 BC), people in China had worshipped a lot of different gods (polytheism) such as weather god, river god. People in the Shang Dynasty believed that their ancestors become like gods after they died, so people worshipped their

Shamanism and ancestor reverence are key religions of the Chinese. Shamans are spiritual healers who call on spirits while they are dreaming to relieve an individual from uncertainty or cure an individual from a disease (Laughlin & Rock, 2014). Shamans are seen as elders of the Chinese community and are respected for the tremendous healing power they have on others. Furthermore, ancestor reverence is the respect many younger generations have for their

The heart ended up as a divine seed, ready to be re-planted/re-used in the creation of another being. The human brain: is the home of the tonalli, the force of love and heat. This stayed on earth to be kept by your family as ashes in a box with a tuft of your hair, and was associated with the highest heavens of the cosmos. The human liver: being full of blood, is the home of the ihiyotl, courage, the soul and the engine of passions, but also the force of cold. This was dispersed after death in winds, spirits and illnesses, and was associated with the underworld. After death, every human being had a service, tasked by the gods, in the cosmic process. The departed did these services to help keep humanity alive.

medical scholars in the oldest of Chinese medical texts, the Huangdi Nei-jing (Nei Jing) or Inner

At the core of any nation’s culture are its religious beliefs. In China there are the “Three Jewels” Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, as described in Lopez (1996). There are small numbers of people practicing other religions such as Christianity and Islam, but these are the three dominant beliefs of the region. While they are separate in content, they have coexisted for several thousand years. Lopez (1996) goes on to say, “Historical precedent and popular parlance attest to the importance of this threefold division for understanding Chinese culture…Buddhism is the sun, Daoism the moon, and Confucianism the five planets…suggesting that although they remain separate, they also coexist as equally indispensable phenomena of the natural world.” Each belief system stands alone, and at the same time needs the other(s).

Inherent in the sacred religious myths of China, the story that unfolds is that of the Dao . This harmonious and mythical story of the Dao is something shared by all yet, concealed in natural forces. It is only in the relationship between the Dao and the individual that one’s authentic self is comprehensible. The totality of creation works via the congruent combinations of the harmonizing opposite’s, yin and yang (Esposito 19). Yin is defined as the passive female

In the Confucianism religion, rituals are held to bring people together. The core unifying factor of rituals is worship. One of the oldest rituals in the Confucian is the worship of the ancestors. Confucians took ancestors worship as a source of their moral and spiritual fulfillment something that brought harmony in the society. The rise of Han dynasty in 202 BC, endorsed Confucianism as a leadership ideology, and it came with the incorporation of the ancestors worship (Dubs, 1938). Shrines to ancestors mostly consisted of pictures of the dead elders and to show respect to them, one was required to clasp incense in the hand and kneel before the picture to place the burning incense in the holder. Ancestors are taken to be a link to the Supreme Being and the people. The respect for the dead was caused by the belief that a person has two souls, namely hun and po. The two souls are associated with yang and yin

Nature, spirits, and life’s existence are important to the Shinto religion. The way in which spirits existed towards humans can be seen as follows: “In their world myriad spirits shone like fireflies and every tree and bush could speak”. Religion had manifested itself into the Shinto religion. Nature was the main religious symbol of the religion. The kami, or religious Gods and spirits could be found everywhere in the Shinto life and religion.

Teiser, Stephen F. "The Spirits of Chinese Religion." Http://afe.easia.columbia.edu. Ed. Donald S. Lopez. 1996 Princeton University Press.