BUDDHIST monk Shravasti Dhammika blogged recently about a column I wrote, which brings up a meaningful discussion regarding the practice of Chinese religions in Singapore.

In the column, I compared the demographic development of Buddhist and Taoist believers, and reported that Taoist leaders are working to dispel popular opinion that the religion is a superstitious faith with no theological standing.

Venerable Shravasti Dhammika argued the point further by explaining that the folk religion of worshipping gods and spirits, and Taoism, were in fact two separate belief systems.

He said: "And more importantly, Shenism, the worship of traditional Chinese folk gods and spirits, is really quite different from Taoism (and Buddhism for that matter) although the author of this article, and indeed many Chinese, assume they are the same."

"Shenism" is really a modern word, derived from the act of deity worship, or what the Chinese call "pai shen".

It was coined by English anthropologist Alan Elliott in the 1950s, in a report, titled "Chinese spirit-medium cults in Singapore", in which he used it to describe the religious practices of many Chinese-Singaporeans who pray to deities for luck.

The word, however, is misleading.

To distinguish "Shenists" from Taoists and Buddhists is to ignore the reality that it is not possible to define any Chinese belief system as it is practiced today as one with a uniform, discreet set of values.

Here's why:

The act of Chinese ancestral and deity worship predates history. China’s first official religion – really more of a "thought system" – was Taoism, believed to be founded by the legendary philosopher, Lao Zi, over 2000 years ago.

Even then its practice was split three-ways: philosophical, religious and popular Taoism, with the latter two belief systems incorporating aspects of folk religion such as ancestral spirits, divination, and sorcery.

Then came Buddhism, which was introduced to China in the Han Dynasty, about 200 AD, around the same time Taoism became the nation’s official religion.

Buddhism was thus intertwined with Taoism from the start.

Its scriptures were translated using Taoist vocabulary; records show Buddhism at the time was described as a kind of "foreign Taoism".

The switcheroo went both ways. In competing for the public’s attention, Taoist leaders followed the Buddhists' example and built monasteries and temples. They also adopted their ideas of vegetarianism and prohibited alcohol.

The mix finally coalesced during the Song Dynasty, when Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism were patched together resulting in the state-endorsed Neo-Confucian philosophy, which lasted roughly between 960 and 1280 AD.

This is largely the tradition that most Chinese-Singaporeans inherited after the first wave of Chinese immigrants landed here from Guangdong and Fujian in the early 19th century.

Venerable Shravasti Dhammika, an Australian who lives in Singapore and is the advisor to the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society, is right in that the worship of Chinese folk gods and spirits has nothing to do with the original, philosophical teachings of Lao Zi or the Buddha.

But that distinction has no practical value in understanding Singapore's pluralistic Chinese religious culture, or how its faith systems have evolved.

The reality is that after hundreds of years of religious syncretism, no practice of Chinese religion in Singapore – be it Taoism or Buddhism – can be ideologically pure.

Buddhist temples here are commonly kitted out with halls for the dead, even though ancestral worship is not mentioned in any Buddhist texts.

It is also not unusual for Buddhists (or any Singaporean for that matter) to practice privately Taoist concepts such as feng shui, tai ji and acupuncture, accepted as they are today without argument as non-religious, Chinese beliefs.

Many, like my Uncle Tua Ba (a rather indignant Buddhist, as it turns out, after I asked him if he might consider himself a Taoist instead), pray regularly to gods such as the Tu Di Gong (Earth God), Zao Shen (Kitchen God) and Cai Shen (God of Wealth) – who themselves exist both in Chinese folklore and in Taoism, though I am told they rank differently in the two realms.

Here's the bottom line, as Master Chung Kwang Tung, a priest with the Taoist Federation (Singapore), said to me last week: "Here, the concepts of Chinese ancestral worship, Taoism and Buddhism have undergone what might be described as a 'chemical reaction'.

"It is not possible to separate the bonds of our inherited traditions – and what would be the point of it anyway?"

Today, younger Chinese-Singaporeans, being more aware of their religious affiliation, have begun to distinguish between the practices of Chinese folk religion, Buddhism and Taoism.

Many believe that being an unambiguous practitioner of any one – versus a composite – belief system is less confusing – and more meaningful.

Not so for me.

I grew up – in fact still live – in a Taoist/Buddhist/folk religion household, and although I am non-religious, I take part in all of my family's religious activities. To me, there's nothing confusing – nor anything more meaningful – about keeping one's tradition.

In matters of faith, choice is an important and deeply personal freedom Singaporeans have a right to.

As far as labels go, I suppose I see myself no less a Taoist, Buddhist or Shenist than I am a Chinese-Singaporean – in the company of all the "shens" of my inheritance.

Editor's note: The phrase "bai shen" or "pai shen" both refer to the same act of worshipping gods or deities. Here, "pai shen" was preferred over the hanyu pinyin version, "bai shen", as it was the translation used in TN Jenkin's Chinese Traditional Thought and Practice (2002); and Daniel Goh's Chinese Religion and the Challenge of Modernity in Malaysia and Singapore: Syncretism, Hybridisation and Transfiguration (2009), among other academic journals.
 
Correction:
An earlier version of this blog cited the phrase "pai shen" in Benjamin Isadore Schwartz's The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985) to mean the act of worshipping deities. This is incorrect. The phrase, in that context, meant "a hundred gods". Apologies.