section_path: Core concepts of theology and cosmology/Hun and po, and zu and xian
section_name: Hun and po, and zu and xian
paragraph_text: Hun and po, and zu and xian
  
  Like all things in matter, the human soul is characterised by a dialectic of yang and yin. These correspond to the hun and po (Chinese: 魂魄) respectively. The hun is the traditionally "masculine", yang, rational soul or mind, and the po is the traditionally "feminine", yin, animal soul that is associated with the body. Hun (mind) is the soul (shen) that gives a form to the vital breath (qi) of humans, and it develops through the po, stretching and moving intelligently in order to grasp things. The po is the soul (shen) which controls the physiological and psychological activities of humans, while the hun, the shen attached to the vital breath (qi), is the soul (shen) that is totally independent of corporeal substance. The hun is independent and perpetual, and as such it never allows itself to be limited in matter. Otherwise said, the po is the "earthly" (di) soul that goes downward, while the hun is the "heavenly" (tian) soul that moves upward.
  
  To extend life to its full potential the human shen must be cultivated, resulting in ever clearer, more luminous states of being. It can transform in the pure intelligent breath of deities. In the human psyche there's no distinction between rationality and intuition, thinking and feeling: the human being is xin (Chinese: 心), mind-heart. With death, while the po returns to the earth and disappears, the hun is thought to be pure awareness or qi, and is the shen to whom ancestral sacrifices are dedicated.
  
  The shen of men who are properly cultivated and honoured after their death are upheld ancestors and progenitors (zuxian Chinese: 祖先 or zu Chinese: 祖). When ancestries aren't properly cultivated the world falls into disruption, and they become gui. Ancestral worship is intertwined with totemism, as the earliest ancestors of an ethnic lineage are often represented as animals or associated to them.
  
  Ancestors are means of connection with the Tian, the primordial god which does not have form. As ancestors have form, they shape the destiny of humans. Ancestors who have had a significant impact in shaping the destiny of large groups of people, creators of genetic lineages or spiritual traditions, and historical leaders who have invented crafts and institutions for the wealth of the Chinese nation (culture heroes), are exalted among the highest divine manifestations or immortal beings (xian Chinese: 仙).
  
  In fact, in the Chinese tradition there is no distinction between gods (shen) and immortal beings (xian), transcendental principles and their bodily manifestations. Gods can incarnate with a human form and human beings can reach higher spiritual states by the right way of action, that is to say by emulating the order of Heaven. Humans are considered one of the three aspects of a trinity (Chinese: 三才 Sāncái, "Three Powers"), the three foundations of all being; specifically, men are the medium between Heaven that engenders order and forms and Earth which receives and nourishes them. Men are endowed with the role of completing creation.