Practices
Along with the written works of the founding patriarchs, spirit-writing provides a distinct corpus of scriptures for each individual sect, that develops the shared themes in different directions and serves to differentiate the individual group from related sects. The variations on the central theme are many: for example, different sects use different names for the supreme deity, the I-Kuan Tao and the T'ung-shan She calling her "Venerable Mother of Limitless Heaven" (Wuji Laomu), the Tz'u-hui Tang "Golden Mother of the Jasper Pool" (Yao-ch'ih Chin-mu), the Tien-te Sheng-chiao "Unborn Sacred Mother" (Wusheng Shengmu). The Daoyuan diverges from the common maternal pattern by describing the supreme deity as male, naming him "Most Sacred Venerable Patriarch of Former Heaven" (Zhisheng Xiantian Laozu). Despite these and many other differences in liturgy, organization, and doctrine, ultimately each Xiantian Dao sect represents a variation on a central theme.
Read more about this topic: Way Of Former Heaven
Famous quotes containing the word practices:
“Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it—an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“To learn a vocation, you also have to learn the frauds it practices and the promises it breaks.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)