儒家修養曼陀羅模型:華人殯儀傳統中「天」「鬼神」雙重信仰之機制的分析架構=The Mandala Model of Confucian Self-Cultivation: A Framework for Analyzing the Mechanisms of Dual Belief in Heaven and Spirits within the Chinese Funeral Tradition
Confucian philosophy calls for paying respect to one's deceased ancestors as an act of filial piety. The deceased are believed to enjoy an afterlife among the living. Using funeral traditions as the starting point, I explore how religious faith applied in Chinese culture. Kwang-Kuo Hwang (黃光國) pointed out that Chinese religions are constructed on a particular structure of dual belief in Heaven (Tien) and spirits (kuei-shen). Unlike the Western subject-object dichotomous worldview, which presumes that the individual is independent from the external world, traditional Chinese beliefs emphasize an analogy between Heaven, circumstance and man. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism all support mental synchronization of humans and the universe. The functions and implications of funerals are complex and difficult to understand with Western reductionist logic, so I outline the categories of Chinese self-cultivation system as a whole from a Buddhist perspective. Based on theoretical and empirical studies of religious dimensions and Chinese personal religiosity that rely on the psychological concepts of a mortality salience effect and continuing bonds, I propose a paradigm shift for studying religious mechanisms in Chinese culture and develop the mandala model of Confucian self-cultivation. This model is intended to aid analysis of Chinese beliefs in Heaven and spirits. I provide an integrative discussion of the relationships among the living, the deceased, and Heaven in Chinese culture, and an outline for exploring the principles of self-cultivation and enlightenment.