Difference of Body Treatments in Buddhism and Daoism of China

Asceticism is popular in some religions. Religion believes the supernatural strength or substance exist, and ordinarily, spirit is more important than body, therefore generally body is looked down on compared with spirit in many religions. In ancient China, there were many recordings about the self-inflicted religious practices, among which Buddhism is obvious. However, Chinese Daoism has totally different opinions on the treatment of body with many religions in the world. The opinions on body of the two different religions represent the different aspects of Chinese culture. In this paper, the different opinions of Buddhism and Daoism are investigated. Buddhism and Daoism both exert the deep influence on Chinese culture. On this basis, the paper discussed Chinese folk culture about body.