Discussion on Orthodox Taoist Beliefs IV: Good and Evil, Merits, Blessings, and Transformation

I. Taoist View on Merits and Blessings: Chengfu and Feng Shui

The Taoist concept of merit and blessings is called "Chengfu" (Inheritance of Merit and Demerit). Unlike Buddhism, Chengfu affects future generations. Because the term "Chengfu" has ancient origins, its pronunciation has changed over time, and it is not very smooth to say, so we will continue to refer to it as Taoist merit and blessings here.

So, what exactly is Chengfu? In more ancient terms, the fortune of bloodline descendants influences each other, and this influence is most obvious in the later transmission of the bloodline.

In more modern terms, we can say that there are phenomena where fortune is correlated among relatives with the most similar DNA. This correlation of fortune is most obvious in the direction from the paternal line to the son's line, while the influence between peers is smaller.

As shown in the image above, the fortune of peers is like branches of a river, while from top to bottom, the fortune transmitted from father to son accumulates and changes. There is only influence between peers, but no obvious accumulation, because fortune flows forward. Regarding gender, there is a distinction between men and women among children. Men's fortune usually continues to be passed down because the Y chromosome is passed down continuously. Women's fortune converges towards the male side. The influence of ancestral Feng Shui also exists. Some say that after a woman marries into a man's family, she no longer has fortune influence; this is incorrect, which will be discussed in detail in the Feng Shui section.

So, is the concept of Chengfu a fantasy or is there solid evidence? From the perspective of Chinese Yin Zhai (burial site) Feng Shui over thousands of years, there is no need to doubt it.

The principle of action of Chengfu and Yin Zhai Feng Shui has similarities. First, Chengfu talks about the transmission of fortune to descendants, and Yin Zhai is the same.

However, Feng Shui uses the environment to create formations to seek good fortune and avoid bad luck, while Chengfu seeks good fortune and avoids bad luck through merit and blessings.

There is also a special connection between Feng Shui and Chengfu. As the saying goes, "Good people live in blessed lands." Generally, people who accumulate virtue and do good deeds, supported by the transformation of merit into blessings, are more likely to get better Feng Shui. This is the origin of the saying "People with blessings live in blessed lands."

To explain Feng Shui, one must first explain the principle of Chengfu. This article focuses on this.

Taoism values the naturalness of human reproduction and reproduction, so Taoism never avoids the matter of continuing the family line. In cultivation, it emphasizes "To become an immortal, one must first be a human." For example, the ancient orthodox Zhengyi sect requires that one must fulfill human ethical responsibilities before discussing the Great Dao.

If the good deeds of predecessors are not transformed in time, they accumulate as merit (also called Yin Gong). After this merit transforms into fortune, it will be passed through the bloodline to the closest relatives from a DNA perspective, and then passed on successively. Feng Shui is the same. Similarly, if evil deeds are not resolved in time, this evil will also transform into bad fortune and be passed on to descendants. After transformation, it will manifest.

II. The Scope and Differences of Merits in Taoism and Buddhism

1) Differences in the target of using transformed merit and blessings

The reason Buddhism does not have the concept of Chengfu is that Buddhism emphasizes leaving home (becoming a monk/nun), cutting off ties with the secular world by abandoning wife and children. In this situation, the well-being of direct relatives is completely outside one's consideration. At the same time, because the continuation of descendants is not considered, the merit transformed from the good deeds and virtue of ancestors is often entirely used for oneself.

For example, typical monks do not engage in labor and accept offerings with peace of mind. Their reason is the huge blessings of believing in Buddha. Actually, this is wrong. Among Buddhists, there are no shortage of corrupt officials and unscrupulous businessmen, nor are there monks who indulge in wine and women. The current corruption in the Buddhist temple is a typical example. These corrupt monks are not sincere practitioners, but why do they have these blessings? The reason is that they are actually consuming the blessings accumulated by their ancestors.

Many monks also keep mistresses or secretly have children outside. Because the blessings that should have been given to descendants are used by them, the descendants will inevitably be in a terrible situation later.

In primitive Taoism, such as the Zhengyi sect, this is not allowed. Taoism emphasizes that one must consider future generations. Not only must one be filial to parents, but one must also be loving to descendants, so one must consider descendants for ten thousand generations.

If we make an analogy, Taoism is constantly accumulating for descendants, while Buddhism spends all the savings accumulated by ancestors on oneself.

2) Differences in the target of accumulating merit

Everyone knows that Taoism cultivates the present world. For current practical interests, Taoism does not realize them by consuming blessings but has created the Five Arts of Taoism to benefit the world and people. It can not only solve present problems but also continuously accumulate merit.

If Buddhism's merit is mainly about saving all sentient beings, and these sentient beings refer to sentient beings, while insentient beings cannot become Buddhas, so Buddhism's focus is on humans. Its theory starts from the human heart, and everything spoken, discussed, and done revolves around human awakening and becoming a Buddha.

Taoism is very different. All things have spirituality, and it saves all things to become the Dao. Therefore, Taoism's focus is on heaven, earth, all things, and everything outside of heaven and earth. Humans are just the most spiritual among all things. Therefore, there are four great things in the domain, and humans are one of them; humans are not uniquely supreme.

Therefore, there is no concept of supreme supremacy in Taoism. Even the extremely high divine image of the Jade Emperor must obey the decrees of Yuanshi (Primordial Lord). However, the Jade Emperor himself is an incarnation of Yuanshi. Yuanshi itself is the source of everything but not the master of everything.

But in Buddhist mythology, it is not like this. Buddhist materials often describe the birth of Shakyamuni, pointing one finger to the sky and one to the ground, saying, "In heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one." This is naturally nonsense made up by later generations, but from this, we can see that Buddhism shows a strong tendency of narcissism and arrogance.

Precisely because of this, Taoism does not believe, like Buddhism, that only sentient beings can achieve enlightenment. All things can cultivate and achieve. In terms of hierarchy and pattern, it is much larger than Buddhism.

However, most people do not notice this and instead believe that Buddhism's universal salvation is great goodness. This cannot be called anything but upside down.

In Taoist understanding, heaven, earth, all things, and mountains and rivers all receive the essence of the sun and moon and become spirits through cultivation. For them, merit can also be accumulated.

Buddhism's understanding is limited. It can only recognize the ghost realm, so it pushes everything onto ghosts and forces the explanation that ghosts possess them.

Buddhism's limited understanding is due to historical reasons. Because ancient China was once powerful enough to have all nations come to pay tribute, India has basically always been the object of invasion in history. The people and affairs China contacted were far more than the culture brought from India, and the culture was much more enlightened.

For example, in the early Tang Dynasty, although the imperial family believed in Taoism and most officials from top to bottom were Taoists, they did not oppose Buddhism and allowed Buddhism to spread. This is not because Buddhist theory is so excellent. In the Tang Dynasty, enlightenment was advocated. Even a branch of Christianity, Nestorianism from Syria, which was doing very poorly in the West, fled to China and found a place to stay. Even Arab countries often had exchanges with China, buying cinnabar to practice alchemy. At this time, Islam spread, and Persians were allowed to spread Zoroastrianism (Fire Worship), so the Tang Dynasty had very extensive contact with foreign cultures.

Similarly, during the reign of Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, when promoting Buddhism, its narrowness was reflected. Not only was Taoism suppressed, but temples of other sects, especially foreign sects like Fire Worship, were completely demolished. (Wu Zetian had significant achievements in governance, but obviously, the Tang Dynasty began to decline under her rule. Although internal economic and cultural development was stable, external military affairs were basically a mess. Anbei, painstakingly managed by Emperor Taizong and Gaozong, was lost under her hands.)

There are many such historical events. This is the biggest difference between Taoism and Buddhism. Taoism is an extremely inclusive religion. Although it does not actively promote how Taoism is, the believers naturally show great inclusiveness. Although Buddhism often preaches compassion, and there are indeed many sincere practitioners in the folk who do well, from the perspective of the overall historical situation, it is very糟糕 (terrible).

Historically, whenever Taoism was prosperous, it was mostly inclusive, and the national power was extremely strong, typically in the Han Dynasty, "Those who offend the strong Han will be punished, no matter how far away." When Buddhism was prosperous, other sects faced disasters. Although this is the natural law of heaven and earth's rise and fall, the change of life and death, it does not mean that this is reasonable.

In Taoism, making contributions to heaven and earth is doing good and having merit. This includes contributions to humanity, society, nature, and all things. At the same time, the immortal path values life but does not forbid killing. Balancing heaven and earth through life and death is the rational and scientific side of Taoism.

Taking fish farming in a fish pond as an example, draining the pond to fish will destroy the ecology, and only feeding without taking will also destroy the ecology if there are too many fish. Therefore, the action of life and death is for the sake of endless reproduction.

But in Buddhism, it is narrower. It only emphasizes not killing. But if you raise a pond of fish, if there are few fish, it's okay. If there are many fish, the ecology is destroyed, and the fish in the pond cannot escape death. As for the fish dying due to this, it can be explained as the result of the fish's own karma. Although it seems compassionate, it is actually selfish, ignoring facts for one's own cultivation. One should be cautious.

III. Accumulation and Transformation of Merits and Blessings

Generally, after doing good deeds, merit will be accumulated. But if you get enough return after helping others, this merit, having transformed into blessings, will be offset.

The transformation of merit is divided into natural transformation and active transformation. Natural transformation is when merit automatically transforms into blessings. Active transformation is when people actively transform merit into blessings through certain methods.

When accumulating merit, one needs to pay attention not to completely reject rewards. Because completely rejecting rewards will cause the helped person to owe a karmic bond, which will lead to the appearance of the Chengfu effect. Although actively helping people accumulates merit, the helped person also owes merit. To repay this merit, one must either find the person who helped them or help others to accumulate merit to offset it. However, people are actually very lazy. Although there are helped people who help others, it is not common in reality. The result of owing merit is that the helped person will lack merit transformation at necessary moments.

It is said that heaven has a ray of hope. Taoist rules state that helping people must involve receiving gifts. Commonly, more is received from the rich, and less from the poor, but it cannot be not received at all. Even if it is a grain of rice or a piece of red cloth, it must be given. This can settle the problem of owing merit.

There is a joke in Taoism:

A rich man comes with a thousand gold, and a poor man comes empty-handed. If only one person can be helped, and both seek help, who should the Taoist help?

If one only sees the gap between rich and poor and thinks that the poor should be helped, it shows that one may not have seen the essence of the problem and is confused by wealth and poverty. The standard for judging things should be equal for rich and poor, and one should not flatter others because they are rich, nor tilt the scale because they are poor.

If this joke is modified: A rich man comes with a thousand gold, but this thousand gold is merely a drop in the bucket for him. A poor man has no money left but only a grain of rice, which he brings. If only one person can be helped, who should the Taoist help?

If the Taoist sees the poor man coming empty-handed, he should choose the rich man with a thousand gold to help, because the rich man has sincerity, while the poor man has no sincerity and only wants to gain without labor.

If the poor man only brings a grain of rice, and the rich man's thousand gold is not as heavy as this grain of rice, if only one person can be helped, then this poor person should be helped first.

Taoists help people regardless of wealth or poverty, only regarding sincerity and insincerity, and the degree of sincerity. Among them, those who do more good are helped more, those who do less good are helped less, and those who do evil are not helped. The subtlety of application lies in the heart. Act without remorse.

Generally, as long as one is willing to work hard and use one's mind, although not necessarily becoming extremely rich and noble, living a better life is not difficult. The reason most people cannot live better is that they simply do not work hard and do not use their minds.

Therefore, Taoists cannot be easily confused by superficial phenomena. There are rich people who work hard and become rich, and poor people who only want to gain without labor. One must be objective and fair-minded and cannot have prejudice.

Human good and evil lie in temperament, not in wealth or poverty. Although there are many rich but unkind people, there are many poor but kind people. However, there are also many rich and kind people, and poor but evil people are not rare. One must view it with sincerity. Generally, those who are most sincere are most trustworthy and can be helped. If one encounters a poor but positive and cultivable person, one can give guidance and give some provisions. If they listen, their life will naturally change. If they do not listen, it is their lack of affinity, and there is no need to keep it in mind.

Besides cultivators, believers can also do good and accumulate merit. The accumulated merit, in practical terms, can be transformed into blessings. If one encounters a major disaster or a huge problem in life, one can ask a master to preside over using this merit to exchange for the resolution of the problem.

But it needs to be noted that such means to transform merit into blessings must be practiced by those who accumulate good deeds daily. For those who are rich but unkind or extremely evil, seeking it is of no benefit.

Because Taoism does not seek personal gain by consuming the residual blessings left by ancestors. Like after the founding of the PRC, for a long time, Taoism had little development, and many officials believed in Buddha and gods,贪污 (corrupting) everywhere. These blessings were actually consuming the residual blessings of ancestors. Once these are consumed too much, they will encounter things like losing their official positions and being investigated for corruption.

For example, a report last year of an official who embezzled 3.5 million to repair Feng Shui. Also, a former minister who burned incense and worshipped Buddha at home for a long time, and arranged a "Backing Stone" in the office. For the start and completion of some projects, he would invite "Masters" to choose auspicious dates for laying the foundation to seek good luck. Furthermore, a vice governor had a Buddhist hall in his residence, offering Buddha statues, and specially set up altars for Taoist deities and gods. On the first and fifteenth of each month, he burned incense, recited scriptures, sat in meditation, and worshipped Buddha. To receive divine protection, he laid Buddhist talismans under his bedding and Taoist talismans under his pillow, trying to change his career destiny by believing in Buddha.

The final downfall and poor outcome of these officials are actually due to not correctly believing in Taoism according to Taoist concepts. If one truly believes in Taoism, one would not even commit corruption, let alone fall due to corruption?

IV. Dedication and Merit/Blessings

Many people, when praying to gods and Buddhas or conducting some religious rituals, often do "Dedication" (Hui Xiang), such as dedicating this merit to such and such, hoping to get such and such, etc. This is also a flexible means of exchanging merit for blessings.

But it needs to be noted that many people who release animals long-term or conduct other religious activities do not see significant effects. In this situation, one should first pay attention to whether there are problems with one's operations. For example, taking releasing animals as an example, buying sea fish and throwing them into fresh water, throwing sea turtles into rivers where they drown, releasing domestic birds that die of hunger because they have no hunting ability, releasing them into water only to be caught by traffickers shortly after, etc.

Only correct accumulation of good deeds and making truly meaningful contributions to this world can accumulate merit.

Also, doing dedication every time is incorrect. Because each time only that little merit is fully transformed, scratching the itch from outside the boot every time, of course, the effect is not good. The correct approach should be to accumulate merit and use it when it is accumulated enough. The effect will be much better.