This page records how a visitor offers incense at a Taoist temple, following texts published by the temples themselves. The library's Taoist shrine follows what is written below: choose one, three or nine sticks and the censer receives exactly that many.
IHow Many Sticks
Visitors usually offer three sticks. One stick is also correct. The temple sources do not say that more sticks mean more devotion.
The library does not offer 5, 7, 36 or 108 sticks. The meanings attached to those numbers were found only on incense sellers' pages and popular articles, not in any temple source.
At the library's Taoist shrine, each offering counts as one sincere visit, whether you choose one, three or nine sticks.
IIPlace The Sticks Centre, Left, Right
IIINine Prayers And Where Each Icon Comes From
Visitors to Taoist temples pray for everyday matters too, such as health, work, wealth and marriage. The nine prayers below belong to Taoism and Chinese folk religion. Each icon is a real object, with a note on where it belongs and which source describes it.
The blessing lamp. Lighting a lamp for blessings is common to Taoist temples and Buddhist monasteries. On the Taoist side the lamp is tied to the belief in each person's natal spirit. Real temple lamps today are tiered lamp towers. The icon simplifies this to a single lamp.
Shared by Taoism, Buddhism and folk religion · Source: 全國宗教資訊網 (Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan), entry 點光明燈, by 謝世維 and 陳冠蓉The incense pouch. A red cloth pouch holding incense ash and a peace talisman from the temple. The wearer hopes for the deity's protection and safety from harm. The icon shows only the characters 平安 on the pouch, never the talisman script.
Shared by Taoist temples and folk religion · Source: 全國宗教資訊網, entry 香火袋, by 謝宗榮The dipper lamp. The dipper lamp (斗燈) is the ritual object of the rite of honouring the Dipper. A wooden measure of rice holds the lamp of the petitioner's natal spirit, with a round mirror, a sword, scissors, a ruler and a scale. The rite asks the star lords to dispel calamity.
Taoist ritual · Source: 全國宗教資訊網, entry 禮斗, by 李豐楙. entry 斗燈, by 葉聰霈. 道教文化中心資料庫, entry 拜斗The peach of immortality. Old texts record the Queen Mother of the West bestowing peaches that fruit once in three thousand years. Taoism and folk belief treat her as the symbol of longevity, and she presides over the rite for prolonging life.
Taoism · Source: 道教文化中心資料庫 (Fung Ying Seen Koon 蓬瀛仙館, Hong Kong), entry 西王母The carp leaping the Dragon Gate. The carp is associated with passing the civil service examination. It is a folk motif and an art pattern, not a Taoist rite. In Taoism the deity honoured for study and career is Wenchang Dijun.
Folk motif, Taoist deity · Source: Smithsonian (Freer and Sackler), Common Chinese Symbols. 道教文化中心資料庫, entry 文昌帝君The gold ingot. Temple statues of the God of Wealth Zhao Gongming hold a silver whip in one hand and a yuanbao ingot in the other (一手執銀鞭，一手持元寶). The word honest in the prayer is the library's own.
Taoism · Source: 道教文化中心資料庫, entry 財神The red thread. The Old Man under the Moon comes from the Tang tale The Inn of Betrothal by Li Fuyan, in which an old man sits in the moonlight reading the register of marriages. Tradition says he ties the feet of destined couples with a red cord. At Lungshan Temple in Taipei, a visitor who receives three affirmative casts of the divining blocks takes a marriage thread, passes it over the censer and carries it.
Folk custom, present in temples today · Source: 國家文化記憶庫 (Taiwan Cultural Memory Bank), entry 月下老人. 艋舺龍山寺 (Lungshan Temple), worship guideThe floating water lamp. At the Zhongyuan festival people float lamps on water to light the way and lead wandering spirits ashore to receive the offerings. The custom has roots tied to Buddhism and later joined the Zhongyuan rite of universal salvation led by Taoist priests. Real water lamps take many forms, most often a paper house, the lotus lamp being one of them. The Taoist rites of deliverance proper are the lamp rite of breaking the hells and the rite of refinement.
Folk custom of the Zhongyuan festival · Source: 全國宗教資訊網, entry 放水燈, by 李豐楙. Academia Sinica Center for Digital Cultures, 水燈映路慰孤魂Cloud over still water. The Scripture of Clarity and Stillness teaches letting go of desire so the heart stills itself, and settling the heart so the spirit clears (澄其心而神自清). It says: if a person can always be clear and still, heaven and earth return to them (人能常清靜，天地悉皆歸). The icon is the library's own illustration of the text, not a ritual object.
Taoist scripture, icon drawn by the library · Source: 道教文化中心資料庫, entry 太上老君說常清靜妙經The library does not draw talismans, edicts or images of deities as buttons. Talismans belong to ordained priests, so all nine icons are objects.
IVAfter The Offering
So at the Taoist shrine, once the incense has risen, the library invites you to keep an upright heart and say the chosen prayer silently, or softly aloud. That invitation is the library's own. The sources only record that the worshipper prays while bowing. They do not say whether the prayer is silent or spoken.
VIn Real Temples, Incense Is Being Reduced
Hsing Tian Kong (行天宮) in Taipei removed its censers in 2014. Worshippers join their palms toward the place where the censer used to stand. Lungshan Temple cut back step by step from 21 sticks to one censer and one stick, then stopped providing incense on 13 March 2020. Many other temples chose one stick per censer.
The reasons given are the environment and PM2.5 fine dust, visitors' health, and smoke damage to paintings and wood carvings in historic temples. Huang Shu-wei (黃書瑋), chairman of Lungshan Temple, said that flourishing incense is measured by how many people believe, not by how many sticks burn.
Source: Taiwan Public Television, Our Island, 燒香的兩難 (13 February 2017). TVBS news, 13 March 2020.
VIWhat The Library Is Not Sure Of
Are you a Taoist and see something wrong? Please send a correction with its source to thayungkhiem@gmail.com. The library will fix it and credit you.
VIISources
Sources read on 4 October 2026. Van Dao Duong describes. It does not replace a real rite and does not represent any church or temple.
Go to the Taoist shrine to offer incense
?Quick Questions
How many incense sticks are correct in Taoism
Usually three, honouring the Three Treasures of Taoism: the Dao, the Scriptures and the Teachers. One stick is also correct and stands for the Great Dao being not two. The temple sources do not say that more sticks mean more devotion.
In what order are three sticks placed
The first in the centre, the second on the left, the third on the right, no more than one cun apart, level and upright. Two temple sources give the same order.
How do I put out a flame on the incense
Fan it up and down or shake it gently. Do not blow it out with the mouth.
Does choosing nine sticks count as nine visits at the shrine
No. Each offering is one sincere visit by one person, whether you choose one, three or nine sticks. The censer does receive exactly the number you choose.