It is my thesis that the Shenzhou jing's eschatology is concerned with ethics. From the viewpoint of the Shenzhou jing Daoists, it was human beings alone responsible for the disorder and the total destruction of the world. It was because human beings were regarded as mediators between Heaven or, the Dao, and Earth. They were encouraged to perform their role of mediator by mystically communing with the Dao through receiving, chanting and revering the Shenzhou jing so that the organism of Heaven-Earth-Human could maintain harmony and order. Whenever human beings separated themselves from the Dao, and affiliated themselves with this-worldly material interests or ought blessings from the power of evil spirits, the oneness of the universe, specifically the communal relationship between Heaven and human, would no longer be sustained. The collapse of this oneness in the Shenzhou jing was symbolically described as the withdrawal the Dao from human world. As a consequence, the world was believed to fall into total disorder and eventually undergo total destruction. On this point, the eschatological belief of the Shenzhou jing was developed.;At the core of the Shenzhou jing's eschatology is a set of moral criteria and moral requirements, showing its audience who could be qualified to pass through the total destruction of the world. Basically, these criteria include abandoning one's desires and self-interests, believing in the Dao, following the Dao's teachings and caring for others. In other words, the Daoists of the Shenzhou jing required their followers to build a relation first with the Dao and other beings so that the oneness among human beings and between human being and the Dao could be re-stored. Thus, religious ways to cultivate one's morality embedded in the Shenzhou jing can be called "relational ethics." It required its audience to submit their own self to a larger Self, the Dao. To do so, the Daoist ideal of harmony between humankind and Heaven could re-appear and resolve all diversities and contradictions appearing in the cosmos, Earth and human body. As a consequence, the world would return to the Great Peace, and humankind would enjoy the infinity of life occurring in the primordial origin, that is opening the time of re-creation. In this regard, the practice of immortality in the context of Shenzhou jing was not simply a religious and individual matter. It contained a humanistic moral vision to summon audience to place the Dao, the creation origin, and others before oneself.*.;*Originally published in DAI Vol. 61, No. 8. Republished here with corrected name.
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