Chapter 6 (The Soul in the East)

The soul

The concept of an entity similar to the soul arises in the Hindu Upanishads between 800-500 BCE, a little before the ancient Greeks would begin to develop a concept of a soul in the west. This chapter will start with the soul in the east. A later chapter will turn to the soul in the west and a still later chapter will try to relate these concepts to the spiritual consciousness and the source described in chapter 3. However, for now I will describe my understanding of the soul as it is seen in various traditions.

If one looks at a definition of soul as found in modern online dictionaries like Merriam-Webster or Oxford Languages/Google, one finds definitions that include notions like the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, an immaterial essence, or animating principle, that which gives life to an individual or animal. Soul may also refer to emotional or intellectual energy found in a work of art or a theatrical performance. An individual may also be referred to as the soul of a project or a movement. Clearly, in the context of how the soul relates to the spiritual consciousness, we are most concerned with notions of immaterial essence and animating principle.

There are those in both east and west, who believe that there is no soul. After you die, you simply no longer exist. This view is associated often with atheism in the west. Even in the spiritually oriented eastern world, a school known as Charvaka argued that only things which can be perceived with the senses exist and since we can’t experience an afterlife with our senses, it doesn’t exist. However, these are minority views and the soul or something like a soul is a fundamental concept in eastern and western thinking.

Personal and impersonal Gods and souls.

In the west we tend to think in terms of individual Gods and individual unique souls. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have a single all-powerful God. Everyone has his own personal soul which is unlike all other souls although in popular culture some souls are spoken of as being so alike or complementary that they just go together and are referred to as “soul mates”. In the east there are also individual Gods, such as Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. Like Gods in the west, these Gods have human like characteristics. They get mad. They can be loving or vengeful and sometimes fight with one another or make deals with their subjects. However, there is also the concept of impersonal Gods and souls. Here the notion is a God or some ultimate reality or force that is beyond human conception, beyond what humans understand. An impersonal God that has no human characteristics. It is neither loving nor vengeful. It just is. At the same time there are also impersonal souls. That is souls that are the same in all of us. This will come up in the discussion of the Hindu Brahman and Atman and the relationship between them. A recurring theme in these discussions will be the issue of monism vs. dualism or plurality. Is the universe only one thing or is it made of many things ?

In considering the soul across different traditions a central set of questions which must be addressed are:

1)    What is the nature of the soul? What is the substance that it is made of? Is it immortal or mortal?

2)    What is the relationship of souls to other souls? Are they all unique and individual or are they part of a universal soul?

3)    What is the relationship of the soul to God or some ultimate reality? Is the soul made of the same substance as God or was the soul created by a God which it is subordinate to?

4)    Do animals have souls; are there souls in plants and inanimate objects?

For this last question, since all of the major Indian traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) accept the notion of reincarnation on the wheel of samara which includes an animal realm, they will all accept the notion that animals have souls. Jains will also extend the possibilities to include that souls exist in plants and non-living matter.

The Vedas

The Vedas are the oldest Hindu literature. They were brought by the Aryans who migrated out of the region now Iran into India about 1500 BCE. The Vedas are the most sacred texts of Hinduism and one definition of a Hindu is one who accepts the authority of the Vedas. The unknown authors of the Vedas sought explanations for natural phenomena. They observed the movement of the sun rising in the morning and the moon in the evening. They concluded that there must be some force moving the sun and moon and postulated that it was a god, Surya in the case of the sun and Soma the moon. Likewise, they saw gods in the clouds, heard gods in the wind, saw gods in earth, water, fire and air. The Vedas offered descriptions of the Hindu gods and contain stories of creation. They developed hymns to the Gods and rituals meant for incantation and performance by the Brahmin priests, by which the gods could be enlisted to perform acts that would bring prosperity in this life. In this outlook the Vedas were polytheistic or it might be said pantheistic. However, they were not that concerned with death or the afterlife. There was no clear concept of a human soul. The Vedas were revealed truths given to man at the very dawn of time and very much looked outward rather than inward towards a soul.

The Upanishads

That attitude would change in the period from about 800-500 BCE. A concern for what happened after death would arise and along with the concepts discussed in earlier chapters of reincarnation driven by the laws of karma, a new conception would completely change the outlook. If life was to continue after death there needed to be some entity that survived death of the body and transmigrated into the next life.

About 600 BCE a series of texts began to be written known as the Upanishads. The authors of the Upanishads are unknown. Upanishad means sitting down near, like sitting next to and receiving a lesson from an enlightened teacher. The Upanishads can be thought of as records of such encounters. They address the core question on the spiritual journey of understanding the relationship of the individual to that larger reality beyond the senses not by developing logical arguments but by looking inward through meditation. Meditation here is not reflective or contemplative thinking. It has no element of thinking. Rather the goal is to train the mind to have a fixed one-pointed concentration on a meditation object. For the sages of the Upanishads that object was ultimately the inner self.

As the sages looked inward, they sensed that they could peel away the layers of the individual and see a previously unseen reality not appreciated by the ordinary senses. When concentration became deep enough one would become absorbed into the object. Absorption here does not mean unconsciousness but rather a state of intense inner wakefulness. Eventually the senses would shut down and there would be a feeling of no longer having a body. Next the mind along with its thoughts and feelings could be peeled away. However, after peeling away the mind and the body, a consciousness still remained.

Eastern thinking considers there to be four types of consciousness. There is the consciousness of waking life as I sit here writing these words now. There is dreaming and dreamless sleep when the body is asleep and either dreaming or not. But then there is a fourth level of consciousness that is not generally recognized in the west in which the body is asleep but the mind is awake. This state is also described as being awake in dreamless sleep. This state which the consciousness enters after dropping the body and mind would later be called complete absorption or samadhi. For a fuller account of this process, see Eknath Easwaran’s introduction to his English translation of the Upanishads (Nilgiri Press, 2007).

In this state the sages found that they could recognize a new entity which they called Brahman. Brahman came to be regarded as the unifying force behind the gods of the Vedas. Brahman was the base of all existence and the source of everything. Brahman was furthermore indivisible. The earth, the planets, all living creatures are Braham. Brahman was even the Gods. The sages made a further discovery that there was an inner self of the individual, the true self which they called Atman.

The Upanishads are not systematic philosophy. They do not make logical arguments. They are more like visions appreciated in the mind rather than the senses and present what can be seen as contrasting views on the relationship of Atman to Brahman, a subject of interpretation around which a consensus would emerge only later. The sages of the Upanishads became teachers in ashrams or forest academies where students with a teacher’s help would be taught to experience the same realities for themselves.

The schools of Hinduism

Six orthodox schools or Darshanas of Hinduism arose between about 550 BCE and 300 BCE. These schools would be considered orthodox because they accepted the authority of the Vedas. Two of these schools Vaisheshika and Nyaya would take a pluralistic view that the world is not made of one thing but many things. The Nyaya school would be heavily concerned with epistemology and Vaisheshika held atomists views that the world is made up of very tiny particles called atoms. Nyaya and Vaisheshika would eventually merge and although important for many centuries neither school would have a lasting influence on thinking about the soul. Of the other four schools, Mimamsa would be concerned with how the rituals of the Vedas should be performed while Vedanta would be concerned with the relationship of Atman to Brahman. Samkhya (also spelled Sankhya), Yoga and Vedanta would all be concerned with the parts of the self and their relationship to the soul.

Samkhya and Yoga

The schools of Samkhya and Yoga are often paired. Samkhya writing is mostly concerned with metaphysics and sees liberation as occurring through knowledge. Yoga stresses practices, particularly meditation as the way to liberation. Samkhya philosophy began to take shape well before the common era. Indeed, purusha and prakriti, the two substances found in Samkhya metaphysics are mentioned in the Upanishads.

The major text of the Yoga school is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras were written somewhere between about 200 BCE and 300 CE, this wide time frame reflecting debate over whether the author Patanjali is the same Patanjali who wrote a treatise on Sanskrit grammar. Most scholars think it was probably written closer towards the end of this period. Samkhya philosophy would be written down in its most complete form by Ishvarakrishna in the latter half of the 4th century CE in his Verses on the Samkhya. However, core Samkhya ideas were clearly developed by the time the Yoga Sutras were written earlier.

Samkhya and Yoga would describe a dualism between spirit and matter having two entities: 1) prakriti or matter and 2) purusha or consciousness. Prakriti is the primordial source of the physical and mental universes. Purusha is pure consciousness. Here, mental activity or the mind is considered part of the physical world. It is thus unlike the mind/brain dualism in the west where brain is the physical substance and mind is mental activity. In eastern thinking the mind is often considered a sense organ, lying on the physical side of the universe.

Prakriti can’t see or know anything and purusha can’t do anything. Samkhya philosophers illustrate this in the analogy of the blind man and the lame man. The blind man (prakriti) can’t see anything but can walk. The lame man (purusha) can see but can’t do anything since he can’t walk. However, if the blind man carries the lame man on his shoulders, the lame man can direct the blind man. Thus, when the two are together in the human body they can generate a functional unit, however uneasy the alliance may be.

When it is separated from prakriti, purusha is a pure unbiased observer who can see the world as it really is. However, purusha’s vision becomes clouded and tainted when it becomes too involved with prakriti. When purusha becomes dragged into worldly concerns over money, the mental activities and desires of living, it loses its objectivity. Liberation comes about by understanding this distinction and releasing purusha from its bondage to prakriti.

This is accomplished through the practices of Yoga as described in the Yoga Sutras. The Yoga Sutras consist of short aphorisms. These short statements are often cryptic and seem more like a set of notes compiled by an experienced practitioner and written for someone already familiar with the core concepts. Since their earliest days, they have almost always been accompanied by commentary explaining and expanding on their meaning.

The core of Yoga philosophy can be found in the first four aphorisms of the Yoga Sutras, which in Barbara Stoller Miller’s translation (Yoga, Discipline of Freedom, University of California Press, 1995) are:

1)    This is the story of Yoga.

2)    Yoga is the cessation of the turnings of thought.

3)    When thought ceases, the spirit stands in its true identify as an observer to the world.

4)    Otherwise, the observer identifies with the turnings of though.

What then follows is an exposition of how using moral discipline and meditation one separates spirit from matter.

Samkhya is sometimes spoken of as an atheistic or at least non-theistic Hindu school in that it can be seen as not proposing the existence of an ultimate god or creator god. Some Samkhya philosophers argued that there was no need for such an entity. After all, if transmigration of the soul is governed by the universal laws of karma, what does a God do? Enforce the laws of karma? But if the laws of karma act autonomously why would a god be necessary to enforce them?

In addition to purusha and prakriti, there is a third element Ishvara that is prominently mentioned in the Yoga Sutras. The term Ishvara is found in many places in Hindu literature and has a range of meanings depending on the era, the context and Hindu school. In the Yoga Sutras, Ishvara is a form of purusha. However, it is a form of purusha that has never been involved with prakriti and never been subject to the laws of karma. Thus, it is above the world connected to matter. Ishvara is also generally spoken of in more impersonal terms, being referred to as the Lord of Yoga. Ishvara is accessed when the mystical syllable “om“ is recited. While Ishvara is sometimes referred to as the archetypal yogi, that seems inappropriate since it doesn’t need to follow yogic practices to separate itself from prakriti (after all it has never been touched by prakriti) and it is not subject to the process of reincarnation. While most of the Yoga Sutras are devoted to using personal meditation to see the elements of purusha and prakriti and disentangling them, there is also a devotional quality and a value seen in making a direct connection with Ishvara.

Vedanta

Vedanta means the end of the Vedas. The Vedanta schools would only fully develop well into the common era. They all base their ideas on three central sets of texts: the principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutra. The Upanishads were discussed above. The Bhagavad Gita was discussed in chapter 4 and the Brahma Sutra deals with understanding the nature of Brahman. There were various Vedanta schools. Many of the Vedanta schools emphasized Bhakti, the way of devotion. The Advaita Vedanta emphasized Jhana, the way of knowledge. Philosophers in the Advaita Vedanta focused attention on the relationship between Atman and Brahman and are thus important in understanding the concept of the soul.

Adi Shankara lived in the 9th century CE and is without doubt the best known and most influential of Advaita Vedanta philosophers. He is certainly the best known in the west. Shankara would propose a view that would be called monism in which he asserted that Atman was in fact identical to Brahman. Shankara would describe the world that we think we see as an illusion, the illusion being we see things as separate entities when they are really only one, i.e. Brahman. The most famous formulation of this statement in the Upanishads is “tat tvam asi’ usually translated as “you are that.” At the deepest level you are Brahman. You are not this person that you think you are. You are Brahman. Furthermore, the Atman is the same in all of us although Jiva is often used to refer to an individual soul and Atman the collective soul. Thus, the whole world is one. Shankara saw the fundamental human problem as ignorance, i.e. not recognizing this oneness. Spiritual liberation comes about by the knowledge of realizing that you are that.

Coming back to the notion of illusion, what does Shankara mean when he declares “the world is an illusion?” He does not mean that the physical world doesn’t exist. It is not like the idealism of western philosophers like George Berkeley who declared that objects only exist if there is a mind there to perceive them. Rather Shankara advocates a type of monism which says that Brahman created everything and everything is Brahman. However, in our present physical state we can’t see that unity with our physical senses. We can only begin to recognize it.

The fundamental tenets of Shankara’s philosophy can be summed up as follows:

only Brahman is real,

the universe is false,

Atman is Brahman,

nothing else.

Shankara uses a number of analogies to illustrate this concept. One is the notion of the rope and the snake. When we first see a rope, we may think it is a snake. However, once we see it is a rope we wake up to the illusion of it being a snake. Or imagine that one is in a dream. While the dream is occurring, it seems real enough but once we wake up, we realize the world of the dream is an illusion. Vedanta philosophy would refer to this illusion as maya. Maya is a term frequently found in Hindu philosophy which can have different meanings depending on context. However, in this context, it refers to the illusion that we see a world of subjects and objects when we are really only seeing a world which is one. Shankara would say that we can understand this situation as being a type of dualism in which there is a conventional truth (the world is real and seems to consist of many things) but at the same time there is an ultimate truth (the world is monistic and there is only Brahman). We can appreciate this conceptually but we cannot see it.

Almost universally when you hear the story of the Upanishads summarized in the west you hear “tat tvam asi” interpreted “you are that”. However, other later Vedanta philosophers would adopt different views. Ramanuja (1077-1157) would adopt a view of qualified monism. Brahman and Atman are made of the same substance in form but are not exactly the same. Finally, a later philosopher Madva (13th-14th century CE) would adopt a dualistic view that Brahman and Atman are not the same. In other words, you aren’t that. The view of Shankara is certainly the one most commonly known in the west. It was the view adopted by the influential 20th century Hindu philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975).

Buddhism

The Buddha accepted the basic notions of karma and samsara prevalent at his time. He in addition noted three marks of existence: dukkha, anicca and anatta. These can be translated as suffering or unsatisfactory (dukkha), impermanence (anicca) and no self (anatta). Impermanence can be seen as leading to the ultimately unsatisfactory nature of the world that we live in (dukka). What the Buddha meant by anatta is argued among Buddhists. Was the Buddha denying the existence of the Hindu Atman or was he making the more qualified statement that there is no permanent self?

Meditation is a core element of training in virtually all forms of Buddhism. In fact, when the Buddha as he describes it went into homeless, he first studied with two renowned meditation teachers Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta. They both taught versions of the Jhanas which are deep meditation states still practiced by Buddhists today. Kalama and Ramaputta taught that to achieve the Jhanas was to gain liberation. The Buddha mastered their practices but came to believe that accomplishing the Jhanas alone was not liberation. He concluded that the Jhanas were enormously beneficial on the spiritual path to understanding and would practice and teach them throughout his career but consider them a method to enhancing knowledge not the end of the spiritual path.

Scholars point to multiple examples in the Pali canon which is the most direct record of the Buddha’s teachings that seem to support the notion that the Buddha denied the existence of a permanent unchanging self. When the Buddha looked deeply in meditation, he also seems to indicate that he did not encouter an inner self, suggesting that he might be denying the existence of a soul. He advised his followers to go look for themselves. The Buddha uses the term “self” such as in the Samyutta Nikaya sutra where he says “live having self for an island, self for refuge and no other” but here he is clearly talking about self-reliance, i.e. relying only on your own will and effort not that of a god. In discussing this topic, it must also be said that the Buddha generally discouraged metaphysical speculation because he thought it was not useful in advancing one on the spiritual path. There may be many thoughts on this subject which the Buddha had but did not express because he thought it was unimportant for us to know.

Thus, for early Buddhists and those who still follow the Theravada tradition it can said there is no soul. However, if there is no soul then what reincarnates? The Buddha used the analogy for the spiritual journey of the near and farther shore. We’re on the near shore and we want to get to Nirvana on the farther shore. The Buddha’s teachings were the raft that takes one from the near to the farther shore but if there is no soul what is being taken there.

Buddhist philosophers would offer explanations. The most common would be the analogy of the candle and the flame. Imagine the individual is like a flame. The flame is a composite of a combustible fuel source, oxygen and heat just as the human being is a composite of parts. What happens to the flame when it is blown out? Of course, nothing happens to the flame, it simply no longer exists. At death transmigration of the soul was conceptualized as a spark from the original flame transmitted to a new candle to create a new life.

Early Buddhism is often admired by secular philosophers in the west for its rationalism. The Buddha presented an analysis of the human problem and then gave a prescription for how to solve it. He presented a path and invited his followers to follow that path and discover the same truths that he came to discover. The original Buddhist path was very much a path that required self-reliance. The individual had to do this for himself. No god could do this for him.

Within the Pail canon there is an often cited address the Buddha gave to the Kalamas. The Kalamas were a clan that had a keen interest in spiritual matters and frequently invited teachers to present their systems of metaphysical thought. By the time it was the Buddha’s turn the Kalamas had heard just about everything. The Kalama’s question to the Buddha was why should we believe your dharma, as opposed to the teachings of everyone else. The Buddha answered that they shouldn’t. They should take his teachings and apply them. If they produced wholesome results then they should be believed. If not, they should be rejected.

In early Buddhism, the Buddha was not regarded as a god. He was regarded a human being who through his own efforts discovered the truths that he did and then taught them to others. To the question of did the Buddha believe in a god, if we interpret god in the western sense of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator God with a capital “G”, he clearly did not. He recognized the existence of a realm of the gods on the wheel of samara, occupied by beings who lead enormously long lives, enjoying great power and pleasure. Yet, these long lives eventually come to an end at which time the god would almost inevitably fall down into a lower realm of existence. The gods were still on the wheel of samsara.

For later Buddhists this would change. The Buddha would come to be regarded as a god. In addition, later Buddhists would identify numerous other Buddhas and Bottisatvas (Buddhas to be) which would come to populate the Buddhist universe. These Buddhas and Bottisatvas could be prayed to and could respond. In some ways, the Buddha took the gods out of the skies while later Buddhists put them all back and then added some.

For later Buddhists, the notion of a Buddha nature or true self would also become central and would supply something similar to a soul. This Buddha nature would be at the heart of all individuals and recognizing it would become key to liberation. Thus, later Buddhism adopts a view that includes something similar to a soul which can someday ascend to the world of celestial Buddhas and Bottisatvas.

Jainism

Jainism is the third major religion that arose in the Indian subcontinent. Its founder Mahavira was roughly a contemporary of the Buddha, likely a little older. Like Buddhism, Jainism is considered heterodox since it does not accept the Hindu Vedas as authoritative. However, Mahavira accepted the basic notions of samsara and karma. He espoused a notion of liberation through ascetic practice, meditation and non-violence. However, unlike the Buddha, Mahavira clearly believed in the existence of the soul and greatly expanded the idea to the notion that almost all things have souls. Jains believe that there are individual souls called Jiva trapped in nearly all matter. They divide the world into five categories of beings depending on how many senses they have with the number of senses determining the capacity of creatures to experience the world around them.

These categories consist of:

1)    Creatures like humans and most animals that have the five senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and vision.

2)    Creatures with four senses like flies and similar insects that are thought not to hear.

3)    Creatures with three senses like moths and ants that are considered deaf and blind.

4)    Creatures including worms and fish that have only the senses of taste and touch

5)    Finally, plants, microscopic organisms, air, fire and water which have only one sense of touch.

This last category which comprises most of the world is especially important since Jiva in this last category can largely only feel the experience of pain. Within this last category Jains make sub-distinctions between e.g. root vegetables such as potatoes which have more complex souls and which harvesting requires killing the plant vs. fruits where the edible element can be harvested without killing the tree.

Embree’s Sources of Indian Tradition (Volume 1, Second Edition, Columbia University Press, 1988) describes the world view for the Jain as being “the whole world is alive. In every stone on the highway a soul is locked, so tightly enchained by matter that it cannot escape the careless foot that kicks it or cry out in pain but capable of suffering nevertheless. When a match is struck a fire being, with a soul which may one day be reborn in a human body, is born only to die a few moments afterwards. In every drop of rain, in every breath of wind, in every lump of clay, is a living soul.”

This outlook greatly affected Jain practice in which ahimsa or nonviolence was at the heart of ascetic practice. However, it is very difficult to be a Jain since anything you do including eating any kind of food can cause pain in other souls. Even wearing clothing can be a source of causing pain as the pressure of the skin against the clothing causes great pain to the souls within the clothing. How one deals with this in Jainism is you do the best that you can. Ordinary Jains are vegetarians, practice monogamy, limit travel, meditate and periodically fast. Jain monastic orders are stricter. They give up family, practice celibacy and beg for food. Some Jain monastic orders do not wear clothing and Mahavira starved himself to death. Jain practice follows its ontological view that there are souls in all matter. In fact, one might argue that if you accept the Jain world view, there is really nothing else you can do.

The soul in China

Historically Chinese religion has been a mixture of traditional folk or popular religion, Confucianism and Daoism with elements of Buddhism later mixed in ( see https://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/index.htm; Living in the Chinese Cosmos). Popular or folk religion refers to beliefs or practices not part of the three major defined religions (Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism). Traditional Chinese folk religion varied widely but often stressed veneration of the ancestors as well as worship of spirits (shen) and gods thought to be behind natural phenomena. These practices would be blended with Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism to be part of popular religious practices that have been found in China for centuries.

Confucius (551–479 BCE) was roughly a contemporary of the Buddha and Mahavira. He lived in a time of unrest and looked to the past as a time he thought was a golden age of morality and enlightened rulers. Confucius himself wrote nothing down and his teachings were collected in a text The Analects compiled by his students and not completed in its final form until likely the third century CE. Confucius was most concerned with how society could return to that golden age. He thought this could be achieved by adjusting the relationship of the individual to society. He stressed morality, responsibility, filial piety, and conformity to the social order with the goal of producing a harmonious society. Confucius wasn’t that much concerned with the afterlife.

Daoism’s legendary founder Laozi is considered to have lived also about 500 BCE. Laozi is a mysterious figure whom some perhaps most scholars doubt ever existed. Daoism’s major work the Daodejing also referred to as The Laozi was written somewhere between 475-221 BCE probably by many authors. The second major text of Daoism is The Zhuangzi also named after another possibly legendary figure Zhuang Zhou or Zhuangzi (ca. 370–301 BCE).

Unlike the concrete problem-oriented approach of Confucianism, Daoism took a decidedly non-conformist approach. Central to Daoist metaphysics is existence of an entity called the Dao. The Dao is usually translated as “the way” or “the way of the nature”. The Dao is the source of the universe, although it is not regarded as a creator god. It is not any particular thing but it generated all things and is in all things. It has elements of being a transcendent pure being. Yet, it is immanent in that it is present here and now. The Dao has an impersonal quality and the Daodejing says that the Dao is “no special lover of humanity.” The Dao owes humans no favors. Yet, humans thrive when they attune themselves to the way of the Dao.

The Daodejing is written in a cryptic poetic style and the Dao is ultimately beyond words. The Dao is a mixture of opposites, male and female, solid but empty, weak yet strong. Daoist philosophy stresses seeking the union of opposites and frequently makes paradoxical statements. The way to take action is to take no action. The best teaching uses no words. The way is that of effortless action. Where it expressed a political philosophy, it was one decidedly different from Confucius. Ronald Reagan in his state of the union message in 1988 quoted Laozi as having said “govern a great country as you would cook a small fish. Don’t overcook it.”

Some western scholars have portrayed the Chinese as not having creation stories. That seems not to be true. However, it does seem that no one creation story is dominant. Daoism regards the Dao as the creator force. Another important concept in Chinese metaphysics is the concept of qi (chi). Qi is usually translated as vital energy or force, air, breath or simply energy. Qi is the underlying energy or force that powers all actions in the universe.

Chinese conceptions of the soul and afterlife vary. One version found in popular Chinese religion considers there being three domains in the cosmos consisting of heaven, earth, and the underworld. Each domain is populated by a set of gods and goddesses with the Jade emperor ruling the heavenly domain. The souls of the dead are transported to the underworld which is the domain of ten judges or magistrates. The domain of the underworld is a transitory state where souls are held accountable for their actions during life and might be subject to punishment. Humans who lived exemplary lives have the possibility of being reborn immediately in heaven as gods. However, those who have not need to atone for their misdeeds as they pass through the ten courts of the underworld before being released. Living relatives could make offerings to the dead to ease their transition through the underworld.

Chinese often considered humans as having two souls called ho and pun. However, ho and pun consist of multiple parts. The numbers attributed to each vary but three hun and seven po is a common number. Hun is considered the spiritual element and vital force. Po is the physical material element. At death, the hun leaves the body and ascends to the spirit world, where it is called shen. The shen is thought to remain there permanently where it has powers to protect descendants and may return to earth for festivals. The po remains with the corpse and becomes called gui or ghost. Offerings can be made to the po and under some circumstances the po may persist on earth for a period of time as a ghost. Ultimately the po disintegrates and is reabsorbed into the earth.

Some animals are considered as having spirits which can become immortal but on a separate track from humans (see Ju, Xi. Neighbours in the City: “Four Animal Spirits” in Beijing from the 19th Century to the Present. Religions 14: 396. 2023). Chinese who have adopted Buddhism and accept the notion of reincarnation on the wheel of samsara accept the notion of an animal realm having souls.

References

Roger T. Ames and David Hall (translators). Dao De Jing, Making This Life Significant, A Philosophical Translation. Balantine Book, New York, 2003.

Eknath Easwaran, (translator). The Upanishads, Nilgiri Press, 2007.

Ainslie T. Embree (editor). Sources of Indian Tradition Volume 1, Second Edition, Columbia University Press, 1988.

Ju, Xi. Neighbours in the City: “Four Animal Spirits” in Beijing from the 19th Century to the Present. Religions 14: 396. 2023. https:// doi.org/10.3390/rel14030396

Barbara Stoller Miller (translator), Yoga, Discipline of Freedom, University of California Press, 1995

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The Vedanta Philosophy and the Doctrine of Maya. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/intejethi.24.4.2376777

Living in the Chinese Cosmos, https://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/index.htm