Chinese folk religion

====Rites of passage====
[[File:明制冠禮.jpg|thumb|''[[Guan Li]]'', Confucian [[coming of age]] ceremony ([[Hong Kong]], 2013)]]
A variety of practices are concerned with personal well-being and spiritual growth.{{sfnp|Yao|2010|p=180}} [[Rites of passage]] are intended to narrate the holy significance of each crucial change throughout a life course.{{sfnp|Yao|2010|p=180}} These changes, which are physical and social and at the same time spiritual, are marked by elaborate customs and religious rituals.{{sfnp|Yao|2010|p=180}}

In the holistic view about nature and the human body and life, as macro and microcosmos, the life process of a human being is equated with the rhythm of seasons and cosmic changes.{{sfnp|Yao|2010|p=180}} Hence, birth is likened to spring, youth to summer, maturity to autumn and old age to winter.{{sfnp|Yao|2010|p=180}} There are ritual passages for those who belong to a religious order of priests or monks, and there are the rituals of the stages in a life, the main four being birth, adulthood, marriage and death.{{sfnp|Yao|2010|p=181}}

Chinese folk religion sometimes incorporated Daoist elements about personal growth. A [[Tao]] realm inconceivable and incomprehensible by normal humans and even Confucius and [[Confucianism|Confucianists]] was sometimes called "the [[Tian|Heavens]]" and thought to exist by many ancient folk religion practitioners.<ref name=":132">{{Cite book |last=Minford |first=John |title=Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao |publisher=[[Viking Press]] |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-670-02498-8 |location=New York |pages=ix-x |language=en-US |author-link=John Minford}}</ref> Higher, spiritual versions of Daoists such as Laozi were thought to exist in there when they were alive and absorb "the purest Yin and Yang",<ref name=":132" /> as well as ''[[Xian (Taoism)|xian]]'' who were reborn into it after their human selves' spirits were sent there. These spiritual versions were thought to be abstract beings that can manifest in that world as mythical beings such as ''xian'' [[Chinese dragon|dragons]] who eat yin and yang energy and ride [[cloud]]s and their ''[[qi]]''.<ref name=":132" />