# Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills/Book 2/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
Preparation for a Future Life. 修來世 hsiu lai shih.
This is also spoken of as yin kung 陰功 or secret merit. Secret merit is supposed not to be spoken of, and is rarely practised by people under forty, but some, after they have sown their wild oats desire to accumulate merit to counteract their evil practices; as the saying runs 一善阝夊千惡, one good deed changes a thousand bad ones.
To set free living creatures bought for the purpose, fang shêng 放生, such as birds, fishes, tortoises, eels, etc., is reckoned great merit. So is the building of bridges by subscription. To repair the public roads near the home, when done out of free will is also believed to be very meritorious, but it is expected that travellers will contribute to this work, and has now come to be a respectable way of begging. This kind of work is also inflicted by law for light offences.
​To give away medicine and sticking-plaster to the poor is merit, but it is reckoned still greater merit to give away good prescriptions, as these are often a legacy of ancestors, and any person having a few good ones might start in business. Some people keep a tea pot or crock full of tea at their doors for people to drink out of during the hot weather. Others light a lamp at a dark and dangerous part of the road to keep people from falling into a ditch or over a precipice. They open a free ferry k‘ai i tu 開義渡 for transporting travellers over streams and rivers, or give away rice gruel to the poor in times of distress; or rice and money to the poor at New Year times, or after a fire or flood.
They give free coffins for the poor and for unknown travellers who die by the way; or land for free burying grounds; these are found everywhere. This is reckoned very great merit.
An individual or a number contributing will open free schools. Others give away clothing, bedding and fire-baskets to the poor at the beginning of the cold weather. This is largely done by ladies who wish to prepare for leaving this world. Poor-houses for the aged and orphans are kept up both by government and by public subscription.
To open an orphanage is great merit. The infant children of poor parents are taken to this institution and are here reared; many of the slave girls of officials are procured from these places.
Institutions are opened also for the blind, deaf and maimed, k‘ai t‘zŭ yu t‘ang 開慈幼堂; some for adults, some for children; and asylums for the shelter and support of widows. Such women get benefit from a Society's funds if they are well recommended, and on condition that they do not remarry. Some set up a tramp's refuge, ch‘i liu so 棲流所 for men and women from a distance; shelter is provided free, but not food. Beggars' refuges for the local poor are supported.
The chief beggar carries a rod with which he administers correction to the disobedient, and he visits the farmers at harvest time and gets grain from them, and shopkeepers at feast times to get his wages for keeping the beggars in order. ​After a man takes to begging it is difficult to get him to leave it, but it is also difficult to find one who has been born a beggar, nearly everyone having come to this state through gambling or opium.
When these beggars die they get a free coffin. When put in the coffin a basin is put under each hand and foot, and a broom under the buttocks. The basins are said to be like the hoofs of a horse, and the broom like the tail of a horse. The idea is that in this life they have done little and got much from the country, and in the next they are willing to become horses to carry government despatches.
To collect printed paper, shou tzŭ-chih 收字紙, and burn it in places built for the purpose is to accumulate merit. It is merit to collect this paper, merit to deal in it, and also to buy and burn it. A receptacle for it is hung up in almost every house and school. Men go round the streets collecting the paper from these baskets. It is reckoned very bad taste to put a book in an unclean place or dispose of waste paper in a careless fashion, because writing has been handed down from the sages. The sentence "be careful of paper with characters" is written up everywhere.
To gather up the dry bones dug out in the public graveyard and deposit them in the dry-bone tower; to put earth on neglected graves—a coolie being engaged to put a load or two of earth on each grave; to give away books and tracts, exhorting people to good deeds and to attend to their idolatry:—such books as the kan ying p‘ien 感應篇 or book of rewards and punishments are freely given; to invite a man to preach the Sacred Edict at the front door of the house for the benefit of the public; to burn paper clothing and paper money to the orphan spirits in the graveyard; to light lanterns at the New Year and other times to guide the spirits home; these are all works of merit.
To go on a pilgrimage for the worship of Buddha, chao shan pai Fo 潮汕拜佛, is merit. These pilgrimages are nearly all to sacred mountains, and occupy weeks, months or years. Some pilgrims go three steps then kneel down and worship, some five steps and make a bow, others crawl ​through the villages and cities on their knees. The Buddhist devotees are divided into two kinds ta and êrh chü shih, 大 and 二居士, men and women respectively. These latter are called tao yu 道友 or friends of the doctrine.
Another way is to sung ching pai ch‘an 誦經拜懺 chant the classic of "regret for the past." It is said that chanting is a Buddhist idea, while the doctrine of repentance has its roots in Taoism. These classics and repentance odes are very plentiful. Fasting, ch‘ih chai 喫齋 or ch‘ih su 素, is meritorious. It means the abstaining from wine, garlic, and meats, whether for a whole lifetime or at stated times and on stated days. A person who is afraid that his family may not do enough chanting, etc., for him after he is dead has a special lot done while he is alive, and sent on ahead to await him in the next world; also lots of paper and incense are burned and deposited in the treasury of Hades. This is called chi k‘u tao ch‘ang 寄庫道塲.
Some seek merit by issuing tracts about the protection of life, exhorting people not to throw lime in the paddy fields, because it kills the insects there; to refrain from treading on any living thing; they even exhort people to allow vermin to live on the clothing and person; also to abstain from breaking off tender twigs on trees and bushes; because there is life in them. These ideas are from the Buddhist pantheism.
People abstain from treading on anyone's shadow. To do so is to treat them lightly and it is also very unlucky. To strike a person's shadow in a vital part is reckoned to be almost as serious as to strike the person himself.
It is merit to abstain from food on a mother's birthday, because she suffered so much at one's birth. The Mohammedans fast from dawn to dusk on that day. It is great merit to go to the nan hai p‘u to 南海普陀. This is one of the most sacred places of Buddhism, or the place where the goddess of mercy is said to have made her appearance after becoming a celestial. A Taoist idea is for a person to sit erect with legs crossed, the eye fixed on the nose, lips closed, tongue straight, and to swallow the saliva; the thoughts must be kept pure and sleep kept away; the old nature is thus cast off by the top of the head and the aspirant becomes an ​immortal. This is called lien tan hsüan kung 煉丹玄功. The body is said to have ten openings, but the one on the top of the head needs to be opened in this way before it is effectual.