After-Life

Chinese funeral procession.

In Confucian texts there is not much written about the after-life.  Confucius was famous for his lack of speculation about the supernatural.  He  supported honoring Heaven, and the inhabitants of Heaven, the Ancestors, but spent no time discussing them. What he was interested in was our relations here on Earth.

However, the practice of ancestor worship assumes there is a theory of what happens after death. It is the foundation on which the practice is built.

The soul of a departed family member has different components in popular Chinese religion.  It consisted of a yin component known as the po (associated with the grave or final resting place) and a yang component known as the hun (this was at the altar, the ancestral tablet). These ideas varied but generally the po or yin moved downward and the hun or yang moved upward.  In some conceptions you end up with something resembling the Trinity with the soul in many different states at the same time. Here is one popular conception:

• one soul state went to the grave with the body; 
• one soul state went to the Ten Courts of Judgment or Ten Courts of Hell, (check out this link to local Reed College's obsessive collection organized for easy viewing) and was eventually reborn; 
• and one soul state remained in or near the ancestral tablet on the family altar.  

Ancestors had the potential of becoming ghosts if they weren't well cared for by their living kin. But living kin could help their ancestors increase their shen, or strength and goodness of soul, and move through Hell or become more important in Heaven.  Your own shen could be increased here on earth by your good actions.  A Sage with much shen, would not have to go to hell but would go directly to Heaven.

Again, there were many conceptions, but it was thought when a person died the local Earth God of your village immediately took charge of the soul that was to undertake the journey to the underworld and brought this soul before the local City God, who looked over the record of deeds that came with that soul. The City God then sent the soul down before the first of ten judges, also called the ten Magistrates of Hell. The magistrates would hold the soul responsible for what they did in life and dispense harsh punishments for life infractions.

Interestingly, when Buddhism began to influence China's religious life it affected the shape of Heaven. The soul had to make a decision whether it was going to Heaven via the Silver Gate and become a denizen of that world, or take the Pure Lands route via the Golden Gate and become transfixed by the Buddha into a permanent state of Nirvana. (Cohen, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/prb/journey.htm).

incense in worship