Tao traditions: Paving the way to good fortune

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer

The Rev. Duane Pang prays at an altar before the Taoist penance ceremony honoring the nine Emperors of the Big Dipper and their mother, Tou Mu. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser What is Taoism? Tao (pronounced "dow") means "the way," and refers to the feeling of a power that envelops, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. Yin and yang are important concepts in the Tao, which regulate balance and embody the harmony of opposites. (For example, there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.) Taoism, primarily centered in Taiwan, is estimated currently to have about 20 million followers. About 30,000 Taoists live in North America. The number in Hawai'i is difficult to gauge, according to the Rev. Duane Pang, since the practice is not exclusive: Buddhists and Christians can also be Taoists. Hawai'i has several temples and four Taoist priests.

Welcome to the Chiu Huang Li Tou Sheng Hui, or the annual Pole Star Festival, a communal penance service of the Orthodox One sect of Taoism, which originated in China's Sichuan province.

The Honolulu temple is awash in bright colors and enticing smells. The pounding of drums lures you up the rickety wooden staircase to the second-floor landing, where you glimpse tables laden with pomelos, oranges, pomegranates and Chinese sweets.

A temporary altar holds dozens of upside-down bushel baskets, each bearing a family name. Here, what you can see of the baskets — flickering candles and burning incense sticks set into trays — isn't nearly as important as what you can't see.

Since penance is the reason for this festival, the contents of the baskets, hidden from view, are rich with symbolism: rice, for sustenance; coins, for good fortune; a ruler to measure one's personal sense of good and bad; a mirror to look at one's inner self; and scissors, to symbolize that when your destiny is up, it's up.

Worshippers started their nine-day festival last Sunday and will attend closing-day services tomorrow, all the while honoring their celestial spirits — also known as the nine emperors of the Big Dipper and their mother, Tou Mu.

Family offerings

The daily Jook Sing service begins and ends with the Dai Hoy Moon — a loud song using gongs, drums and a horn-like reed instrument called the sona — which bids welcome to the pantheon of spirits as they come down to Earth and serenading them as they leave when the ceremony ends.

On Tuesday, Rose Le was one of the 25 people who attended the mid-morning Jook Sing service. At one point, she and others gathered up their boxes of "ingot" offerings (paper folded into the shape of gold bars). She presented her family's offering to the priest, who recited the names of her family members who could not be present, including two brothers on the Mainland.

"It's usually parents doing for their children," explained Le. But since her parents are dead, Le has had to make the offerings for the family.

After the recitation, she took the offerings outside to two of the priest's assistants, who placed them in the temple's furnace — clearing any accumulated sins and paving the way for good fortune.

Tuesday's was a small Jook Sing compared to the opening-day service on Sunday that drew more than 200 people, the Rev. Duane Pang said.

Started in Confucian era

Taoism is a polytheistic religion; there is a hierarchy of deities topped by a trinity of three Pure Ones, said Pang, which represent "primordial breath, spirit and essence."

"When we exhaust it, we pass on from this mortal world," said Pang, who presides over all the Jook Sing services. "During this festival, I refine these three treasures to become part of the transcendent Tao and, hopefully, ascend to heaven in broad daylight."

Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy by Lao-Tsu, a contemporary of Confucius. It became a state religion in 440 B.C. and along with Buddhism and Confucianism, became one of the three great faiths of China. In 1911, warlords nudged Taoism off its perch as China's official religion.

Today, elements of Taoism — in acupuncture, the study of feng shui, herbal and holistic medicine, meditation and martial arts — remain evident in Hawai'i's diverse cultures.