Negotiating the meaning of spirituality in holistic health care from a Chinese perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper argues for a cross-cultural understanding of spirituality, suggesting that the meanings of spirituality currently available in the holistic healthcare literature are largely Western, which are heavily loaded with a spirit–body dualism. This constitutes one of the reasons why many Chinese-speaking people would not, or would not be able to, fully appreciate the importance of spirituality in the context of holism, which often manifests in Chinese clinical settings as an everyday resistance in the form of non-oppositional cultural alterity. At the end of the paper, the author suggests that inter-religious hospitality be adopted as a more promising way of interfaith spiritual care.

KEYWORDS:

• Spirituality
• Asian theology
• everyday resistance
• Daoist anthropology
• body–spirit dualism

Notes on contributor

Simon Shui-Man Kwan is Professor at the Department of Cultural & Religious Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also Associate Director of Divinity School of Chung Chi College, CUHK. He currently serves as Chair of the Programme For Theology and Cultures in Asia, Editor of the journal QUEST: Studies on Religion & Culture in Asia, and Local Supervisor of the Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology programme offered by the Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK.

Notes

1 In Chinese: 人生始化曰魄，既生魄，陽曰魂。用物精多則魂魄疆。.

2 In Chinese: 人稟五常以生，感陰陽以靈。有身體之質，名之曰形。有噓吸之動，謂之 為氣。形氣合而為用，知力以此而疆，故得成為人也 … 人之生也，始變化為形，形之靈者名之 曰魄也。既生魄矣，魄內自有陽氣。氣之神者，名之曰魂也。魂魄神靈之名，本從形氣而有。 形氣既殊，魂魄亦異。附形之靈為魄，附氣之神為魂也。附形之靈者，謂初生之時，耳目心 識，手足運動，啼呼為聲，此則魄之靈也。附氣之神者，謂精神性識，漸有所知，此則附氣之 神也 … 魂魄雖俱是性靈,但魄識少而魂識多。孝經說曰：魄，白也。魂，芸也。白，明白也。 芸，芸動也。.

3 In Chinese: 元氣有三名，太陽、太陰、中和。形體有三名，天、地、人。.

4 In Chinese: 夫人本生混沌之氣，氣生精，精生神，神生明。本於陰陽之氣，氣轉為 精，精轉為神，神轉為明。The translation here is taken and modified from Seiwert (1998, 269).

5 In Chinese: 神者主生，精者主養，形者主成。此三者乃成一神器，三者法君臣民，故 不可相無也。.

6 Thanks go to my PhD student, Peter Youngblood, who has inspired me to think in this direction.

Additional information

Funding

The work described herein is fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region [project number CUHK444513].