Syncretist spirit-writing cults, in case you didn’t know. They’re sometimes called “Ming sects,” but apparently have some distant connection to Manicheaism. Vegetarian too, and some people accuse them of asking their members for money all the time.
I’m partial to Vietnam’s Caodaism myself (that’s the one that venerates Sun Yat-sen and Victor Hugo as saints, and got prominent mention in Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American”). I’ve been to Yiguantao a few times, but never been initiated or anything. They remind me a bit of the Mormons, except branching out of Chinese folk religion instead of Christianity. Same taste in clothes, anyway!
Apparently there are a bunch of sub-sects. If anybody knows more, please edit their wikipedia site:
I went to a Tiendijiao center once too. Apparently it got started in the 1970’s, as a spin-off of Tiendejiao (“Heaven Virtue Religion” as opposed to “Heaven Emperor Religion”), and they talked a lot about nuclear war back then. I also went to their hq in Nantou, for a conference among representatives of Taiwan’s minority religions, and got to meet the “popes” of six religions at once!
I’m not sure if it’s the same thing but I was initiated into a Taoist church in Oklahoma. It was mostly a place for international students from Oklahoma University. I was in the Asian Studies program and taking a course on Asian religions. The Tao of Laotzu is nothing like this place. It’s kind of a mix of Buddhism, Tao philosophy, and Chinese folk religion. The other members all tried to impress me with pictures of things that were ‘miraculous’. The image of Buddha in a flame, or pictures of a car wreck that if you put them together like a puzzle, you can see a ghost. They gave me a card that they said I would need to have in order to get into heaven. But I lost it.
Hasbro are the official sponsors of the Ego Free Non Materialist Path To Heaven, a new movement in Californian Buddhism. Several hollywood celebrities have joined it too.
that’s the one issued by hasbro, right?[/quote]
It was my get out of hell free, don’t leave home without it card. It just disappeared. I really wanted to keep it, but I only had it for a couple of weeks.
Never have I had a class that was so wildly off the mark as that Asian religion one. Both Taoism and Buddhism that we studied were nothing at all like what is practiced here. It all sounds really good as philosophy, but it gets popularized and transformed. It should have been mentioned in class by the teacher or the text.
Can you give any identifying names or descriptions, such as symbols? I googled “Tao Oklahoma” and got nothing remotely plausible.
The literature on Chinese religions, including textbook chapters, is getting a lot better. The basic problem is that there will inevitably be a lot of stuff that just doesn’t fit. For example, “Christianity” (or people who call themselves Christians) includes all kinds of strange things, ranging from Haitian Voodoo to Watchman Lee and Witless Ni…Watchman Ni and Witless…oh hell, you know who I mean. Anyway, Buddhism is usually found bound up with local spirit cults and the like–but since a lot of people deny that that’s what Buddhism is about, it gets separated out and dismissed as not-so-important.
When I went there they were excited because the master was coming for a visit from Taiwan. He wasn’t dressed special like a Lama or anything, but I got to have a talk with him. He said when you are driving a car and you suddenly have to break and you start to sweat and your pulse is way up, that that is the Tao. And he emphasized that you cannot understand it by using language alone. Their Buddha was the fat, laughing one. I know I got the name wrong now but it is something like ‘Amayida Buddha’. It starts with an ‘A’ anyway.
The fat guy is Maitreya (Mi-li-fo, Miluku, Jampa), sometimes called Budai (Hotei in Japanese). Other prominent bodhisattvas whose names begin with “A” include Amitayus, Avalokiteshvara, Amoghasiddi, and Akshobya.
The main websites for Yiguandao and Caodaism don’t indicate any branches in Oklahoma. However, each of them is apparently divided into more than one sect, so maybe you went to a temple belonging to another sect. And anyway, they have special robes which they wear during ceremonies. Could your temple have been a normal Chinese Buddhist / folk religion temple?
A few follow-up questions:
What city in Oklahoma was it?
Were they Chinese, or something else?
What practices did they do?
Do you remember the names of any books?
Do you remember a symbol or logo–on the outside of the building, or perhaps above the altar?
Where was the leader from? Do you remember anything else about him?
P.S. Oh, that’s what’s I get for not reading it aloud. It’s Amida ! (=Amitabha, Amitofo). Which is Japanese…hmmm. Anyway, his worship is associated with Pure Land Buddhism.
Could the group have been Nichiren Shoshu / Jodu Shinshu / Sokko Gakkai? Did they chant “Namyoho Renge Kyo”?
[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]The fat guy is Maitreya (Mi-li-fo, Miluku, Jampa), sometimes called Budai (Hotei in Japanese). Other prominent bodhisattvas whose names begin with “A” include Amitayus, Avalokiteshvara, Amoghasiddi, and Akshobya.
The main websites for Yiguandao and Caodaism don’t indicate any branches in Oklahoma. However, each of them is apparently divided into more than one sect, so maybe you went to a temple belonging to another sect. And anyway, they have special robes which they wear during ceremonies. Could your temple have been a normal Chinese Buddhist / folk religion temple?
A few follow-up questions:
What city in Oklahoma was it?
Were they Chinese, or something else?
What practices did they do?
Do you remember the names of any books?
Do you remember a symbol or logo–on the outside of the building, or perhaps above the altar?
Where was the leader from? Do you remember anything else about him?
P.S. Oh, that’s what’s I get for not reading it aloud. It’s Amida ! (=Amitabha, Amitofo). Which is Japanese…hmmm. Anyway, his worship is associated with Pure Land Buddhism.
Could the group have been Nichiren Shoshu / Jodu Shinshu / Sokko Gakkai? Did they chant “Namyho Renge Kyo”?[/quote]
I think you are probably right. It was in Oklahoma City and mostly for international students at Oklahoma City Univ. (AKA Oklahoma Chinese Univ.) They were mostly from Taiwan. The ‘temple’ was actually a regular house in a residential area. But they had a nice altar with wooden pews and kneeling cushions.
Pews are actually kind of unusual for Buddhists. The Buddhist Churches of America use them–they’re a branch of Jodo Shinshu, though I can’t find any Oklahoma centers listed for them. Anyway, there are lot of other Jodo Shinshu groups. Though Japanese, they do apparently have a lot of followers in Taiwan too. Their mantra is “Namu Amida Butso.” Ring a bell?
Here are links to the OU Buddhist Association, a student group:
Not long after I came here I got picked up by the Yiguandao. One of them approached me at a vegetarian snack shop and invited me to go to Banqiao to “meet our friends.” I found myself stuck in a room with a lot of other people for the whole Saturday, listening to sermons. They were on the look out for people who were nodding off, in which case you would be given a little cup of coffee. Free vegetarian lunch was the good part. At the end of the day, they took me aside and gave me a talking to, including some of those “miraculous halo” kinds of photos. There was a supposedly clairvoyant girl who said that when she looked at me she saw Jesus. Well, she wasn’t the first person to see the resemblance. I was really struggling to stay awake.
Then another time they invited me and two other overseas students round to an apartment near Shi-Da. Little did I realise that it was initiation time. The ceremony involved making certain gestures and repeating certain words in front of a Maitreya Buddha altar, while having jossticks waved around uncomfortably close to your eyes. I went along with the initiation but one of the others, a muslim, escaped at this point.
After that I tried to shake them off but they kept phoning me. Luckily eventually my two female minders emigrated to Australia and that was the end of that. Lesson - never give cultists your address, phone number or e-mail address!
As far as cults are concerned my favorite is the India-based Ananda Marga. I’m sure they would be upset to be called a cult but they are known as such. In my experience they will let you get as far involved as you like and not give you any bother if you draw the line at a certain point, pull out or drift away. I think they are quite happy to have lapsed Margiis around who remain friendly to them.
Baba Nam Kevalam! I just bought my wife the Chinese translation of “Under the Fathomless Depths of the Blue Sea / In the Land of Hattamatala” (by Sri Sri Anandamurti, under his real name).
I went to the big Yiguandao temple on Daxiangshan (Big Incense Mountain) a few years ago, when they were having this big celebration with lion dances and everything. I talked to people, and received some pressure to stay for the afternoon initiation. (I begged off.) I’ve been to other centers, and seen the rituals–they want everybody to stand at attention, and not slouch around. (Sigh.)
Another, somewhat related religion–the Red Swastika Society, their office is in a big insurance building near Da An Station–showed me a photo of God, taken in Shandong around 1920. (Yes, God’s a Chinese guy.) It turns out they had some contacts with Brazilian spiritualist groups back then. In fact Oomoto was trying to organize them all into a kind of global religious federation. The Baha’is joined in order to teach people Esperanto. Good times, good times…
After discovering that this organisation I’d never heard of until an hour ago is the third biggest religion in Taiwan(!), I’d like to make an effort to learn more about it. There’s so little written about it in English online. Is it a Taoist “denomination”? Do most Taiwanese people view it as a cult? What’s it like? I’m so curious!
Their adherents run a lot of vegetarian buffet places and small businesses like photo labs. I get a certain standoffish vibe from some, maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. I understand you have to sign a pretty demanding oath when joining.
In my early days here, I was semi dating an air hostess who was a member of the Yiguandao. She said sex was out of the question unless I became vegetarian. I asked why and she said “I do not want the spirits of all the animal spirits inside me.”
She was also against killing even mosquitos. I asked what was worse, killing a cow or mosquito, she said it depends on how many mosquitos. I guess she was referring to biomass.
