The term for religion in China, tsung-chiao, refers literally to a tsung or lineage of chiao or teachings, of which the common men and women of China have traditionally admitted three: the Confucian system of ethics for public life: the Taoist system of rituals and attitudes towards nature; and the Buddhist salvational concepts concerning the afterlife. The three teachings, Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian, act as three servants to the faith and needs of the masses, complementing the social system. Confucius regulates the rites of passage and moral behaviour in public life; Taoism regulates the festivals celebrated in village and urban society, and heals the sick; Buddhism brings a sense of compassion to the present life and salvation in the afterlife, providing funeral rituals for the deceased and refuge from the cares of the world for the weary.