[quote=“yisha’ou”]Ok. Couple of things.
Buddhist worship: As was mentioned, there’s a strong human tendency to look for a leader or some other figure outside of oneself to fix one’s problems. The goal of Buddhism is to recognize that everything in life is transitory and ephemeral, and ultimately illusory as a result, and to become ok with that fact. Otherwise, your attachments to life will cause you to be reborn, only to lose everything again, which creates an endless cycle of suffering. Now, understandably, the knowledge that everything in the world is evanescent and ultimately will disappear is kind of hard to accept. A lot of Buddhists will look to the Buddha and to Boddhisattvas (people who have attained enlightenment, but sworn to continue being reborn in the world and trying to help out until everyone else has attained enlightenment too) as figures who can help them deal with life’s difficulties. The very idea of a Boddhisattva – the idea that someone could be enlightened, and able to leave the cycle of suffering, but would still come back to provide aid to others – justifies the existence of Buddhist worship; there are also forms of “Messianic” Buddhism in which people pray to be reborn in the coming Golden Age of the life of the next Buddha, and forms in which people pray to be reborn in the Pure Land where there will be no obstacles to their own spiritual development. People also venerate Boddhisattvas and various other supernatural beings (different gods, demons, and other kinds of supernatural beings) who are still not the Buddha, still part of the cycle of rebirth, but who can be helpful by protecting the temples (those mean guys with swords that you see), frightening worshippers into realizing Buddhist truths, providing helpful suggestions and advice, or even just using supernatural influence to ease worldly troubles. Buddhists may recognize the existence of gods as creatures that do exist, and don’t supersede the wisdom or revelations of the Buddha, and are still worthy of worship or the like because they are very powerful beings – kind of the same way that you might make offerings and be really polite to a king, who while he is not a god, can still give you help or make life difficult for you if he so chose.
Daoism: There are two distinct groups here. “Philosophical” Daoism is a philosophy that advises, for want of a better word, novel approaches to power and problems. This is enshrined in the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi and a couple others (Huainanzi… umm… crap, I’m forgetting things). These guys don’t tend to go on about gods and the like. They are political/way-of-life philosophies. They also probably should not be viewed as a “sect,” as these philosophies would’ve been developed more or less by idiosyncratic individuals, and there’s not much reason for a philosophical Daoist to come together into a larger body – the philosophies are about personal attainment of longevity through meditative practice and avoidance of conflict. “Dao” here really means “Way” – this is a way of life, and not something to be worshipped. Even the Dao itself, which some Western commentators view as an object of worship, isn’t; it is a mysterious and ineffable thing, but basically just an underlying principle for the way the universe functions, and one should live one’s life in accord with that way. You wouldn’t worship the Dao any more than you’d worship physics. The Dao is just more mysterious and pervasive in its implications.
HOWEVER, “religious” Daoism is a different beast, only tangentially related to “philosophical” Daoism. Religious Daoism, while it may have originally borrowed a lot of meditative practices and the like from the philosophical Daoists, owes a lot more to traditional indigenous forms of Chinese religion: the shamanism (channelling of spirits) that was prevalent prehistorically in all three of the big East Asian countries, the idea of a multitude of gods, a bureaucracy of the underworld matching the temporal bureaucracy, etc. With the growth of Daoism as a popular philosophical force, a lot of these religious groups – which really have very little to do with the philosophical ideas – borrowed the name, or were equated in the popular mindset. Something called Daoism, but owing very little to Laozi, Zhuangzi, etc., was a major organizing force behind a lot of the rebellious groups at various times in the Imperial period, and in efforts to establish utopian communities united through ritual and mutual care, which the Emperor and his government wasn’t up to providing.
Religious Daoists believe in a world that is also populated by a lot of different supernatural beings (note the similarity to Buddhists who incorporated a lot of divine beings into the universe that comprises the cycle of rebirth and suffering). In religious Daoism, man ranks pretty high on the religious ladder. A Daoist priest is one who has, through ritual induction and training, attained shamanic control over many of the gods of the outside world, in addition to the various gods of his personal body. Thus, Daoist priests are viewed as being able to perform exorcisms, intercede with the supernatural beings that control outside events, etc. They are also still devoted to the pursuit of longevity, and to awareness of the metaphysical/spiritual connections between different elements of the world, which is why a lot of them are experts in Chinese medicine. Further, being a Daoist priest – even at the level of a grand master – need not be your primary means of employment; while some ritual masters do make a living solely on performing ritual, it’s not uncommon for a high-ranking priest to have a day job and live a fairly humble life, when not controlling weather gods and the like.
Some scholars [eg Isabelle Robinet] view religious Daoism and philosophical Daoism as being the same thing; this is because [in Robinet’s case] she’s forcing philosophical texts into the interpretative mold formed by later religious groups, and basically doesn’t really “get it.” Close reading of Laozi/Zhuangzi etc doesn’t support the beliefs of the religious Daoists; they have a huge, huge canon of other literature dedicated to doing that.
Most of the stuff that’s been described in this thread is about religious Daoist practice – noisy rituals with dancing and music and the like. O’course, probably the best point so far is that if you want to know if something’s a Buddhist temple, look for the Buddha statue; if there isn’t one, it’s probably not Buddhist…[/quote]
:bravo: 
:bravo:
Well said Sir,well said.
[/quote]I have that book. It’s quite good. IIRC it does perpetuate some of the popular misconceptions about Buddhism but it does have some good details about religious practice and temples. I think it’s that book that explains the “algal well” the somewhat water-like square spiral roof design just inside the door of a lot of Daoist temples. Apparently the purpose is to confuse the evil spirits and stop them getting in.[/quote]