A number of my academic colleagues in Mainland China have discussed with me the necessity for the formation of a ‘new’ type of Daoism. The point of this is to move away from the pointless ‘dead-ends’ of superstitious teachings and empower Daoist practitioners with the most effective and efficient medicalised training programmes available. Without a shadow of a doubt, this redesigning will have to accommodate the rigours of modern medical science just as it should retain the elements of traditional Chinese thinking that was premised upon logic, practice, results and replication of those results. Indeed, there is much existing within Daoist (and TCM) methodology that is both ancient in construction and highly effective in practice! Of course, something of a ground-breaking foundation already exists within the teachings of the Qianfeng School of Beijing where its founder – Zhao Bichen (1860-1942) - was able to integrate Western medical science with tradition Daoist and TCM concepts. This modified the Quanzhen, Longmen and Wu Liu Daoist lineages and created a Daoist methodology that educated Chinese people about Western thinking – and Westerners about Chinese thinkers! What many Westerners do not know is that Zhao Bichen often replaced or enhanced a traditional Chinese Daoist term with its exact Western (biological) designate – for instance, for the ‘Ancestral Cavity’ (祖窍 - Zu Qiao) - Zhao Bichen would add the Chinese translation of the Western anatomical term ‘centre of the forehead’. Within his Daoist manuals (see: ‘Taoist Yoga’ translated by Charles Luk as an example), the Western concepts of the ‘centre of the brain’ is used to correspond to the ‘mud pill’ (泥丸 - Ni Wan) and the ‘solar plexus’ is used to describe the ‘middle dan tian’ ((中丹田 - Zhong Nei Dan), etc. All these terms are in Chinese translation and are presented alongside their traditional Chinese equivalent. When Zhao Bichen set about compiling an integrated glossary of Daoist and Western anatomical terms in the early 20th century, such phrases as ‘centre of the forehead’ was completely alien for all but the most well-travelled and well educated of Chinese people of the time. A point that has to be understood is that most traditional Daoist terms were considered ‘obscure’ even for native Chinese-speakers – as the techniques and methods were closely guarded through the descriptive use of metaphor and allegory. Zhao Bichen sought to ‘align’ formerly complicated Daoist terms with regular (modern) terms so that an understanding between the two cultures could be built, and misunderstanding ‘educated out’ of the process of communication. Zhao Bichen was also following the instructions of his two traditional Daoist Teachers who advised him to abandon the exclusivity usually associated with Daoist instruction, and teach any who asked. To modernise and strengthen China, Zhao Bichen decided to align the wisdom of ancient China with the highly effective thinking that formed the foundation of Western medical understanding. Since 1949, the literacy rates in China have sky-rocketed and many modern Chinese readers are now able to fully understand the Western medical terms employed by Zhao Bichen. This allows the average person in China to work backwards into the traditional Daoist codes and decipher the hidden meaning contained inside! The fruits of this labour are experienced by myself when I translate the Chinese-language blog posts of Master Zhao Ming Wang into English. Not only is my task made easier by the integration of Eastern and Western thinking, but this also gives me a firm theoretical understanding when purely ancient Chinese terms are introduced!
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Modern medicine is obviously correct and always developing. Over the last two-hundred years or so, the human understanding of how the human body and mind functions has increased dramatically away from the thinking that dominated the primitive tribal formations of early human civilisation. Having made this point clear, I would also like to clarify that other great cultures have also developed their own particular types of medicines and models of what it means to ‘fit’. In this respect, modern medicine has probably evolved from the Greco-Roman tradition which culminated in the Renaissance (14th-17th centuries CE) in Florence (Italy), the Enlightenment (17th-18th centuries CE) in France and the Industrial Revolution (18th-19th centuries CE) in England. However, far more ancient civilisations – such as Egypt, India and China – also developed their own quite often sophisticated systems of medicine premised, it is true, on as much myth and religious notions as it was upon the sound observation of material processes! In many ways, whilst lack the modern dependency upon materialism, the ancient doctors had to take into account many more cultural and superstitious elements when formulating a guiding medical principle that culminated in the treatment of physical symptoms. Although the Western and Eastern models of medicine have both developed the aloof professional dispenser of medical knowledge – the Eastern model of medicine, particularly that of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), allows for an entire genre of what might be called ‘self-healing’ in the sense that this system of health maintenance is considered ‘preventative’ in nature. In other words, the daily or weekly health regimens an individual puts themselves through, are expected to ‘prevent’ the build-up of negative energy in the mind and body, and therefore remove a foundation forming that allows major diseases to form. Of course, a weakness of this method is that a practitioner can never be fully sure just what his health regimen has ‘prevented’ from forming – as there is no available (physical) evidence that records all the illnesses that have been avoided! This does mean that preventative medicine does not work, because even modern medicine allows for the idea that a healthy lifestyle tends to diminish the chances of major illnesses developing in the mind and body. This is a logical approach, as leading a reckless and irresponsible life has definitely been recorded as shortening life-spans! Furthermore, living in poor or difficult circumstances (through no fault of oneself) can also lead to a diminished life expectancy. As somebody of part-Chinese ethnicity – and who has been brought-up with a traditional Hakka Chinese culture – TCM is far more than a doctor’s office and his medical cabinets! It is far more than acupuncture and seated massage, etc. Firstly, the power of TCM (within a traditional Chinese cultural context) stems from the (ancient) family Clan Name. Our name is pronounced ‘Chan’ in the Cantonese dialect, Chin in the Hakka dialect and Chen in the Putonghua language. The old ideogram for ‘Chan’ is ‘陳’ and this is one of the original ‘One Hundred Surnames’ of China. The centre of village life is the ‘Name Temple’ within which the remains of the ancestors reside in specially built ceramic jars. This is usually next to a temple to Buddha, Guan Yin and/or various Daoist or other spiritual beings. The Daoist God of our family is ‘Wong Tai Sin’ - the God of Medicine and Healing. When we bring flowers to the temple and light incense sticks – we are paying our respects to our Clan Ancestors, the Buddha, Confucius, Laozi, Guan Yin, Wong Tai Sin and a number of village gods (that live in the ground, the water, the sky and trees, etc). Practicing our martial forms and strengthening inner and outer exercises in this temple is also considered ‘an act of worship’. The Clan Ancestors pass on to us the (inner) Ancestral Qi when we are conceived in the womb – and the (outer) Ancestral Qi through the traditions associated with our Hakka Chinese village – which includes reading, writing, hunting, fishing, farming, medicine and martial arts practice. According to the old ways – these traditions belong to our lineage (and village) only – and to reveal them to disrespectful outsider has the effect of taking away the inherent and accumulated cultural and spiritual power! As someone who lives in the West and respect science – I can say that TCM exists in parallel to modern medicine - sometimes fulfilling similar tasks – sometimes fulfilling quite different tasks. Inner fitness, for instance, has no equivalent in Western medicine. Inner fitness is the ability to allow the inner qi-energy to flow smoothly and feely through the inner body channels regardless of the health of the body. For instance, if a practitioner has an injured knee and has problems weight-bearing and moving properly during conventional exercise – through the directing of the qi-energy through the area in a non-confrontational manner – the joints works ‘freely’ and without pain despite the injury still being present. Indeed, subjecting an injured part of the body to this ‘medical’ process (usually through an appropriate qigong sequence), the injury itself begins to speed-up its healing capabilities. Although this is sometimes described as being ‘all in the mind’ I can attest that there is a definite physical component to this process. Alternatively, it is ‘not all in the knee’ - but an integration of appropriate psychological processes and physical manipulation. As an injury is an injury – no amount of positive thinking will help a practitioner ‘ignore’ a knee’ injury as the body and mind simply does not work in that way. I suspect that certain aspects of ancient medical systems are very advanced despite the superstitious and cultural nature of its support-structure, and that the Western medical system, as advanced as it is, will one day ‘discover’ these processes for itself!
Working from Chinese language source materials, the term ‘Zhouyi’ (周易) only refers to the manual of philosophical speculation and divination-guidance as formulated and used during the Western Zhou Dynasty (1134-772 BCE), whereas the term ‘Yijing’ ((易经) refers to the similar manuals said to have existed during the Xia Dynasty (2205-1766 BCE) and the Shang Dynasty (1783-1122 BCE) - as well as all additional information integrated into the ‘Zhouyi’ after the Western Zhou all the way up to the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), etc. Therefore, whereas the Zhouyi should refer only to the divination ritual of consulting turtle plastron and ox scapula bones as a means of communication with the ‘divine ancestor’ said to abide somewhere in the sky – the term ‘Yijing’ strictly speaking, at least within Chinese academia, refers to the ‘entire’ genre of divination manuals before, during and after the Zhou Dynasty. Whereas the ‘Zhouyi’ can be viewed as a specific chronological expression of the entire Chinese tradition of the ‘divination manual’ writing (i.e., ‘Yijing’) - the over-all term of the ‘yijing’ does not always refer to the ‘Zhouyi’. During the Xia (夏) Dynasty – the divination manual was known as the ‘连山’ (Lian Shan) - and during the Shang (商) Dynasty the equivalent manual was referred to as the ‘归藏’ (Gui Cang). These two earlier expressions of ‘wise destiny’ have not yet been found in their entirety, despite interesting archaeological discoveries hinting at their existence (such as the 1993 Hubei find – thought to be associated with the ‘Gui Cang’, for instance). Taken together, these divination manuals are known as the ‘三易’ (San Yi) or ‘Three Changes’ within Chinese academia. Therefore, the term ‘Zhouyi’ refers only to the divination practices of the Western Zhou, and the development of transitioning the paraphernalia of the divining process into book form. This appears to have been in progress around 800 BCE – with Confucius (and his students) able to access a copy during his lifetime (551–479 BCE). In other words, the thousands of turtle plastron (under-shells) and ox scapulae that had been used over the decades for divination purposes and stored in vast libraries, had been accessed, logically assessed and transitioned into the sixty-four hexagrams, hexagram titles, hexagram sequence and commentaries affixing the three-hundred and eighty-four constituent lines. The basis of each hexagram (six-lined construct) is the straight line and the broken line arranged in three pairs of two, or two pairs of three (trigrams), etc. With each hexagram including a brief explanation of the situation it represents, how this condition was arrived at, and what action might be expected to improve the situation, etc. During the following approximately one thousand years, the so-called ‘Ten Wings’ (十翼 - Shi Yi) are slowly added to the original text of the ‘Zhouyi’ (said to have been named by the Eastern Han scholar – Zheng Xuan [康成] using the term to describe how these extra texts ‘support’ and ‘uplift’ the original text like ‘wings on a bird’) - transforming it into a manual of Yin-Yang (陰陽) interpretive science (collectively, the ‘Ten Wings’ are also referred to as the ‘Yizhuan’ [易传] or ‘Change Treatises’). It is believed that Confucius (孔夫子 - Kong Fu Zi) [551-479 BCE] either wrote all, some or part of these texts, or was responsible for ‘editing’ a pre-existing text relating to the Yijing at one-point during his life. This association is taken for granted in China even though it is also acknowledged that more evidence is required to explain this convention. Part of the ‘Ten Wings’ were written before Confucius lived, some were written during his lifetime, whilst others were written hundreds of years after his passing. However, it is not unreasonable to assume a historical connection between Confucius and the Yijing. The ‘Ten Wings’ seven distinct chapters divided into ten parts: 1) Tuan Zhuan (彖傳), Upper, Treatise on the Judgements of the Hexagrams, Part I 2) Tuan Zhuan (彖傳), Lower, Treatise on the Judgements of the Hexagrams, Part II 3) Xiang Zhuan (象傳), Upper, Treatise on the Symbolism, Part I 4) Xiang Zhuan (象傳), Lower, Treatise on the Symbolism, Part II 5) Xi Ci Zhuan (繫辭傳), Upper, Treatise on the Appended Words, Part I 6) Xi Ci Zhuan (繫辭傳), Lower, Treatise on the Appended Words, Part II 7) Wen Yen Zhuan (文言傳), Treatise on the Elaboration of the Words 8) Shuo Gua Zhuan (說卦傳), Treatise on the Discourse on the Trigrams 9) Xu Gua Zhuan (序卦傳), Treatise on the Sequence of the Hexagrams 10) Za Gua Zhuan (雜卦傳), Treatise on the New Sequence of the Hexagrams Prior to this development, the ‘Zhouyi’ advocates that first Hexagram ‘乾’ (Qian) or (assertive) ‘divine sky’ - interacts with the second Hexagram ‘坤’ (Kun) or (receptive) ‘broad earth’ very much in the context of ‘male’ and ‘female’ interaction in the natural world (thus creating a child through conception). Through the combination of hexagram one and two – the foundations are laid for the manifestation of the other sixty-two hexagrams in a ‘new life’ (and explains why the arrangement of the hexagrams are referred to as ‘post-natal’ [後天 Hou Tian] or more cryptically as ‘latter divine sky’ or ‘heaven’. This may be compared to the term ‘pre-natal’ [先天 - Xian Tian or ‘earlier divine sky’ or ‘heaven] which refers to a ‘pure’ and ‘idyllic’ non-aging existence in the womb which Daoist practitioners aspire to return to through their self-cultivation techniques)! All this ideology is developed further in the ‘Ten Wings’ - but it is interesting to observe that the Zhouyi in its core text – recognised the necessity of describing a physical being existing in the real world – and not an abstract being floating around in the spiritual world. This demonstrates that the ‘Zhouyi’ was logically premised upon an observation of material nature and the need to reproduce the species – a model that only later developed into a manual specialising in ‘Yin-Yang’ science. This process can be viewed as a ‘refinement’ of interpretation with the ‘male’ aspect being evolved into ‘yang’ (light) and the female aspect being evolved into ‘yin’ (lack of light). This seems to indicate that the Chinese scholars developed an understanding that ‘light energy’ was the underlying power to all physical reality – and that the ‘intensity’ (or ‘lack’ of intensity) of the presence of light dictated the type of material world humanity inhabits! Light exists literally in the outside world – but also exists figuratively inside the hearts and minds of humanity. Light flow can either be diminished by selfish thoughts and actions – or enhanced by selfless thoughts and actions! Each of the sixty-four hexagrams (and three-hundred and eighty-four lines) suggest ways for maximising inner and outer light – whilst dispelling inner and outer darkness! This is how the ‘Zhouyi’ became the ‘Yijing’. The literature associated with the Zhouyi-Yijing is comprised of the ‘本经’ (Ben Jing) and the ‘傳’ (Zhuan). The ‘Ben Jing’ is the ‘source classic’ or the ‘original’ and ‘foundational’ text associated with ‘Book of Change’. The ‘Zhuan’ (or ‘treatise’) - by way of comparison – refers to any and all subsidiary material built-up and around the ‘core text’ and used to explain, clarify and expand upon the original concept. The sixty-four hexagrams and three-hundred and eighty-four lines, together with their immediate commentaries comprises the ‘Ben Jing’ (source classic), whilst the ‘Ten Wings’ (十翼 - Shi Yi) serve as the subsidiary ‘treatises’ (傳 - Zhuan). Added to this body of knowledge should be the content of the Xia and Shang Dynasty divination manuals. It is an interesting speculation as to whether the work of the Confucian scholar ‘Yang Xiong’ (揚雄) [53 BCE-18 CE] - namely the ‘太玄經’ (Tai Xuan Jing) or ‘Grand Mystery Classic’ - which ingeniously makes use of a ‘tetragram’ system comprised of ‘straight’, ‘broken’ and ‘double-broken’ lines – should be included in the genre of ‘Yijing’ studies. A problem stems from the fact that Yang Xiong was associated with the short-lived ‘Xin’ (新) Dynasty (9-23 CE) - which temporarily usurped the Han-throne! When the Han Dynasty was restored, anything to do with the Xin Dynasty was attacked, destroyed and/or supressed. Yang Xiong’s otherwise interesting divination manual was never properly associated with ‘Yijing’ studies. Chinese Language References:
https://baike.baidu.com/item/易经 https://baike.baidu.com/item/周易/6219 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/83565371 English Language Reference: Chung Wu PhD: The Essential s of the Yi Jing, Paragon, (2003), Page xxi (I exchanged letters a few years ago with this true gentleman). Dear Alex Very good! There is a point of awareness (and being) where 'to possess sexual desire' is no different to 'not possessing sexual desire'. Both states of being arise from the same fertile ground of non-perception (and 'non-being') and emerge into the material world of 'being' and take their proper place within the dialectical patterns (and cycles) that define human existence. Each has its place and only differ (not in essence but) in function. In the meantime, we can 'retain' sexual essence to build our own health and longevity - or we can 'emit' our sexual essence and contribute to building the body of a 'new' human in the womb! A third-option is emitting sexual essence for personal pleasure - which although enjoyable - runs the risks of weakening our own health and shortening our own longevity. At least this is the standard Daoist viewpoint. Another Daoist practice is that a man can 'absorb' the sexual essence of the woman - and benefit from sexual intercourse providing he does not 'emit' during the process. Even Zhao Bichen's manual ('Taoist Yoga') advises the elderly practitioners to 'stimulate' the genitalia on a daily basis to encourage and build sexual vigour - although this stops short of 'emitting'. The sexual essence must be both 'stimulated' and 'absorbed' back into the bodily system.
If You make an in-depth study of the symbolism associated with the 'Yijing' - or 'Book of Changes' - you will develop an intuitive understanding and comprehension of these diagrams even if you cannot read the Chinese language script! The hexagrams, trigrams, yin-yang roundels and five phases ideology are all designed to convey deep and profound insight into the inner and outer state of a) existence and b) reality. In ancient China only around 10% of the population could read and write. This means that 90% could not understand the complex ideograms - but they could be trained to understand the symbolic language designed to present the highest understanding humanity in China had been able to develop at the time, whilst focusing the mind and directing the physical body. This symbolic acts very much like a modern computer language that transfers immense amounts of data from the mind of the teacher into the mind of the disciple! The 'Book of Change' itself - with its sixty-four hexagrams - acts very much like a 'random access memory' (RAM) which oddly enough, is one of the names used to describe 'god' in ancient Indian philosophy! Original Chinese Language Article:
https://www.wang1314.com/doc/topic-20941322-1.html |
AuthorAdrian Chan-Wyles (內丹 - Shi Da Dao) - Qianfeng Lineage: Zhao Bichen (1860-1942), Charles Luk (1898-1978) and Richard Hunn (1949-2006). Acknowledges Master Zhao Ming Wang (赵明旺) of Beijing as the ONLY Lineage Head of the Zhao Family Lineage of Qianfeng Daoism in China and the world. Archives
February 2024
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