(聪明. Without the revenue generated from advertising, we would be unable to provide this great content free of charge. This “cleaning” is what many Christians might refer to as the “rapture“. 60, tr. It is also disturbing that there have been reports of Chinese agents attempting (sometimes successfully) in shutting down shows, harassing performers at their homes, and even slashing their tires outside of venues. Earth would become a ball of karma when karma was all over the place, so at that point it would be eliminated. Compare this phonetic element differentiated with the "person radical" in shen 伸 "stretch", the "silk radical" in shen 紳 "official's sash", the "mouth radical" in shen 呻 "chant, drone", the "stone radical" in shen 砷 "arsenic", the "earth radical" in kun 坤 "soil", and the "big radical" in yan 奄 "cover". Falun Gong (sometimes called Falun Dafa) is a spiritual movement that … Surname 1 Chinese Religions and Shintoism Shinto comes from the Chinese words shen and tao, roughly translated as "The way of the gods." There would still be some people on Earth who were relatively good, and those exceptionally few or extremely few ones were taken and placed onto another planet within the Three Realms. If you live near any large population center in the U.S., you’ver likely seen a billboard or advertisement about the Shen Yun dance production. According to the pastor of the shuttered Bible Reformed Church in Guangzhou, Huang Xiaoning, the Communist Party has tremendous fear that such religions beliefs might encourage free thinking among the Chinese population. Shen is a keyword in Chinese philosophy, Chinese religion, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. China certainly claims that the Shen Yun performance, developed, funded, and advertised by Falun Gong religious followers, are very much part of a dangerous cult. In his actual words, Li said at the Switzerland conference: “That’s the situation as far as alien beings go. (See the List of Kangxi radicals.). Spir­its gen­er­ate en­ti­ties like rivers, moun­tains, thun­der and stars. There is also a ritualistic pattern to how the dead were buried with tombs oriented west to east to symbolize deat… Dazed, I rubbed my eyes and saw a huge, bearded face [Karl Marx] disappearing in the water.”. For instance, it is compounded with tian 天 "sky; heaven; nature; god" in tianshen 天神 "celestial spirits; heavenly gods; deities; (Buddhism) deva", with shan 山 "mountain" in shanshen 山神 "mountain spirit", and hua 話 "speech; talk; saying; story" in shenhua 神話 "mythology; myth; fairy tale". If everyone ran ad-block, TopSecretWriters would be no more. Yang is defined as a supreme, universal shen -- living, creating, dividing itself into an infinite number of shen -- depositing the shen in … Chinese shen 申 "extend" was anciently a phonetic loan character for shen 神 "spirit". “The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China wishes to remind you that the so-called Shen Yun performance is not an ordinary cultural event. Like: concentrated attention; tire the mind; concentrate one's energy and attention. If you do decide to attend a Shen Yun performance, you don’t have to worry about the Chinese government’s warning that you’re watching cult propaganda. 1901–2. This sin­gle Chi­nese term ex­presses a range of sim­i­lar, yet dif­fer­ing, mean­ings. In this system, shen resides in the heart and departs first at death, hun resides in the liver and departs second, and po resides in the lungs and departs last.[1][2]. In fact, the entire Zhuan Falun is published online for the entire world to see. In antiquity, it refers to the spirit of the ancestor who enjoys an afterlife because of the continuing and periodical sacrifices offered to him by the members of his offspring. The first mean­ing may refer to spir­its or gods that are in­ti­mately in­volved in the af­fairs of the world. Shen may refer to: . Among the early Chinese "god; God" names, shangdi 上帝 or di was the Shang term, tian 天 was the Zhou term, and shen was a later usage (see Feng Yu-Lan 1952:22–6, 30–1). He does not hide the fact that he believes homosexuality is wrong, but neither do a large majority of religions in the Western world. In order to ascertain whether Falun Gong meets the criteria of a “cult”, we explored the specific teachings of Li Hongzhi, in his own words. “The Chinese Communist party (CCP) wants to be the God of China and the Chinese people. Christianity says we’re all sinners, and that turning to God – Jesus – is the path to salvation. When: 7:30 p.m. Fri., 2 & 7:30 p.m. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The primary meaning of shen is translatable as English "spirit, spirits, Spirit, spiritual beings; celestial spirits; ancestral spirits" or "god, gods, God; deity, deities, supernatural beings", etc. In response to an attendees question about the morality of homosexuality, Li responded: “When minor things are done incorrectly, a person is said to be wrong. In China, religious beliefs are evident in the Yangshao Culture of the Yellow River Valley, which prospered between 5000-3000 BCE. The Emperor Shen-Nung, who was mythological, is a component of Chinese folk religion, creator of agricufture, and one of the gods most widely worshipped in pre-revolutionary China. Thank you. Again, these beliefs do not make an organization a cult, any more than Christianity is a cult. I read the entire transcript so that you don’t have to, and highlight the aspects of his teachings that seem to align with the Chinese government’s accusations. They reincarnate into soil, rocks, plants or matter, and regardless of what they are reborn as, they carry karma with them. Dignity, distinction. "The meaning of the word. It lists the group’s leader, Li Hongzhi, as teaching all of the following: The Chinese embassy makes the claim that Falun Gong is nothing less than a “cult”. It is a cult that seriously harms the society and violates human rights, and is a cancer in the body of the modern and civilized society.”. ‘I’m hallucinating,’ I whispered to my brother in the dark.”. Mair 1990:30). (表情; 神志. Sitting through a Shen Yen production is like being a guest in a household where a family feud is happening. 3. 如: 神机妙算; 神医; 神品. The origin of the Five-Shen system is found within the Shangqing lineage of Taoist practice. Some exploded. is also in other East Asian languages. © 2020 - TOP SECRET WRITERS. The Chinese shen 神 "spirit; etc." After a person’s death, the soul becomes either of two spirits: the shen, which ascends to the spirit world, or the guei, a dark, … Shen is the Chi­nese word for "god", "deity", "spirit" or theos. From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Shen_(Chinese_religion)&oldid=713437978, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, Celestial gods/spirits of stories/legends, namely, the creator of the myriad things in heaven and earth and the supreme being. I could not find any mention of Li claiming that he himself delayed one of these explosions, but he certainly seemed to imply that humans themselves have the ability to avoid future destruction by avoiding behaviors like “greed and lust”. (传说中的天神,即天地万物的创造者和主宰者. This was graphically differentiated between dian 電 "lightening; electricity" with the "cloud radical" and shen 神 with the "worship radical", semantically suggesting both "lightning" and "spirits" coming down from the heavens. The concept of past humans emerging into the current Earth’s plane of existence also parallels ancient Pueblo Native American beliefs about the “First People” entering the current world from the “Third or Lower world” via “sipapu“, which are passageways between dimensions. (chap. The Shuowen Jiezi defines shen 申 as shen 神 and says that in the 7th lunar month when yin forces increase, bodies shenshu 申束 "bind up". And considering the persecution all religious groups, not only that represented by Shen Yun, has had to suffer under the anti-liberty Communist China regime – they’ve every right to have their voice finally heard in every free nation across the world. The New York-based group is controversial. defines shen, "In Chinese philosophy: a god, person of supernatural power, or the spirit of a dead person. And underlying all of this is the accusation that Shen Yun is a cult, built by the religious organization Falun Gong and its leader Li Hogzhi. Entrancement, ecstasy. In the past, we’ve clearly defined the BITE model, which cult experts use to classify a religion as a cult. The government is scared of the churches.”. The Chinese Communist government cracks down hard on religious organizations. The final stage of an Earth has always been a time when its lives were the most corrupt and its matter was the most impure, so the Earth could no longer be kept. Shén (in rising 2nd tone) is the Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 神 "spirit; god, deity; spiritual, supernatural; awareness, consciousness etc". Pronunciation ''Shén'' is the Modern Chinese standard Mandarin pronunciation of 神 "spirit; god, deity; spiritual, supernatural; etc". Unfortunately for China, beliefs alone aren’t enough to classify an organization as a “cult”. Jia Tolentino of the New Yorker described the show, Define Cult: The Difference Between a Cult and Religion, Three Stories of Cults Gone Rogue In America, Demonic Magicians: The Truth Behind the Tricks, How Hal Puthoff Let Scientology Destroy a Promising Career, Chinese police raided a children’s Sunday school in Guangzhou, Government officials banned the massive (1,500 member) Zion church in Beijing, The Communist government also shut down Bible Reformed Church in Guangzhou, Officials confiscated over 1,000 crosses from Christian churches throughout the Zhejiang province, Li Hongzhi himself has delayed Earth’s explosion by 30 years, Earth is a dumping ground of the universe, My practicing “Falun Gong”, followers will never become sick or get in danger, The Jewish Holocaust was caused by changes in celestial phenomena. Catholics), and shen 神 (esp. And because Chinese religion has for so long been dominated by the idea of the three teachings, it is essential to understand where those traditions come from, who constructed them and how, as well as what forms of religious life are omitted or … It looks like you've got Ad-block enabled.While we respect your decision and choice of plugin, it's important to realize that ads pay the bills, and keep the lights on.We understand many sites use annoying pop-up ads and other manipulative techniques that have made ads annoying in generaland created the need for Ad-Blockers.All we humbly ask that you add TopSecretWriters.com to the ad-block whitelist. ), Magical, supernatural, miraculous; mysterious, abstruse. 6th-10th centuries CE) include dź'jěn (Bernhard Karlgren, substituting j for his "yod medial"), źiɪn (Zhou Fagao), ʑin (Edwin G. Pulleyblank, "Late Middle"), and zyin (William H. Baxter). ), Spirit; mind, mental faculties; consciousness. The Five Shen are the spirits associated with each of the body’s five yin organ systems (Heart, Kidney, Spleen, Liver, and Lungs). It says that the organization preaches: “…heretical fallacies that are anti-humanity and anti-science, and exercises extreme mental manipulation on followers. One of the terms crucial to understanding Chinese religion is shen, which in this unit is translated with different versions of the English word “spirit.” Below, these three words are analyzed separately as consisting of three distinct spheres of meaning, but one should keep in mind that the three senses are all rooted in a … In Li’s speech, he explains that they are more like entities of past beings on Earth who did “bad things” and after the last purge (like the Christian flood), their spirits remain behind as they try to flee from the next “cleaning”. Shen, (Chinese: “spirit” or “divinity”) in indigenous Chinese religion, a beneficent spirit of the dead; the term is also applied to deified mortals and gods. Yet they don’t know that this thing I’m doing has been systematically arranged, so no matter where they run to they can’t escape. Shen, (Chinese: “spirit” or “divinity”) in indigenous Chinese religion, a beneficent spirit of the dead; the term is also applied to deified mortals and gods. Is Shen Yun a cult? Like: ability to divine the unknown, amazing foresight; highly skilled doctor; genius, masterpiece. Paleographers interpret the Oracle script of 申 as a pictograph of a "lightning bolt". The last two accusations of the Chinese government, that Falun Gong followers believe by practicing their religion they won’t become sick or will stay out of danger: What does Christian faith teach us about prayer? The Zihui dictionary notes that 神 had a special pronunciation shēn (level 1st tone, instead of usual 2nd shén) in the name Shen Shu 神荼, one of two "gods of the Eastern Sea", along with Yu Lu 鬱壘. They have to pay for all of the bad things they’ve done, for sure.”. All Rights Reserved. In the religious aspect, Shintoism is a worship attribute towards the beauties of the Japanese land. “Chairman Mao appeared, and the sky turned black; the city in the digital backdrop was obliterated by an earthquake, then finished off by a Communist tsunami. Among the early Chinese "god; God" names, shangdi 上帝 or di was the Shang term, tian 天 was the Zhou term, and shen was a later usage (see Feng Yu-Lan 1952:22–6, 30–1). Toward the end of the show, she described the climax of anti-Communist rhetoric. Sat., 2 p.m. next Sun. 2. What: A Chinese dance and music show by a traveling company associated with Falun Gong. A red hammer and sickle glowed in the center of the wave. China certainly claims that the Shen Yun performance, developed, funded, and advertised by Falun Gong religious followers, are very much part of a dangerous cult. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) Chinese religion as it is a tool enabling access to that field. The earliest written forms of shen 神 "spirit; god" occur in Zhou Dynasty Bronzeware script and Qin Dynasty Seal script characters (compare the variants shown on the Chinese Etymology link below). Whether or not you believe in the Tao-based principles of East Asian religions, it seems hypocritical for anyone other than an atheist to apply the label of “cult” to a religions belief system such as Falun Gong. In popular religions shen means gods (who are good) and demons (who are not always good). Protestants). However, you do have to know that you will be dealt a heavy-handed amount of political propaganda. So, when exploring the question of Shen Yun, and the underlying Falun Gong “cult”, it’s important to examine all propaganda on both sides within this social and political context. ", In acupuncture, shen is a pure spiritual energy devoid of memory and personality traits, whereas hun is the spiritual energy associated with the personality and po the energy tied to the sustenance of the physical body. (入神.) It is not that the demons have no spirit, but that their spirits do not harm people." That Li teaches that the Earth is a “dumping ground” of the Universe is another misrepresentation of Li’s teachings. Shén (in rising 2nd tone) is the Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 神 "spirit; god, deity; spiritual, supernatural; awareness, consciousness etc". ), Expression, demeanor; consciousness, state of mind. The Chinese concepts of Shen and Xin cannot be separated from the Chinese view of the body. 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