Finding a Life of Harmony and Balance. Chen Kaiguo
translated into English over the last ten years.
Complete Reality Taoism is generally divided into two main traditions, Southern and Northern. The somewhat older Southern tradition is rooted in the work of Zhang Boduan (Chang Po-tuan, 983–1082), whose masterpiece Understanding Reality is considered one of the classics of Taoist Spiritual alchemy and is also studied by Taoists of the Northern tradition. Another work on spiritual alchemy by this same master, Four Hundred Character Treatise on the Gold Elixir, is also widely esteemed and studied by Taoists of both Southern and Northern traditions.
The Northern tradition of Complete Reality Taoism is rooted in the work of Wang Chongyang (Wang Che, 1113–1171), particularly his Fifteen Statements on the Establishment of a Teaching. Wang is believed to have learned from Lu Dongbin (Lu Tung-pin n.d.), the great master known as Ancestor Lu. This Ancestor Lu is associated with the integration of Buddhism and Confucianism with ancient Taoism to produce the germ of the new spiritual alchemy of Complete Reality Taoism. Wang Chongyang is also believed to have studied from Lu’s own teacher; later he himself taught a number of famous figures in Taoist tradition.
English versions of works by and about Ancestor Lu, Wang Chongyang, Zhang Boduan, and other adepts of Complete Reality Taoism can be found in Understanding Reality; Inner Teachings of Taoism; Vitality, Energy and Spirit; The Spirit of the Tao; Immortal Sisters; The Book of Balance and Harmony, and The Secret of the Golden Flower.
The Dragon Gate sect of Taoism, of which Wang Liping is an heir, was an offshoot of the Northern tradition of the Complete Reality school. Its spiritual descent is traced to the thirteenth-century master Chang-chun, who was one of the great disciples of Wang Chongyang. Chang-chun, the Master of Eternal Spring, was one of the sages who advised Genghis Khan to preserve the ancient civilization of China after the Mongolian conquest, over eight hundred years ago. Genghis Khan appointed Chang-chun overseer of religions in China, and the Dragon Gate sect thus played a critical role in the conservation of Chinese culture.
Taoists attribute to Chang-chun the core of the work known as Journey to the West, a symbolic story encapsulating Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian teachings. Journey to the West was popularized in drama during the Yuan dynasty (1277–1367) and later elaborated during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) into one of the most famous and most popular novels of Chinese literature. Comments on the interior spiritual significance of Journey to the West, written by Liu I-ming, an eleventh-generation master of the Dragon Gate sect, can be found translated into English in Vitality, Energy, Spirit.
A living survivor of the tumultuous era of the Great Cultural Revolution, Wang Liping is reputed to be master of a very unusual range of knowledge and capacities. As a specially trained Transmitter, he continues the Dragon Gate tradition of maintaining and updating Taoist sciences. In addition to his teaching and healing activities and work on recompiling the Taoist canon, Wang Liping also serves as an advisor to numerous official committees devoted to research on Chinese medicine, diet, and other elements of Chinese culture traditionally subtended by Taoism. He is also a husband and father.
Over the ages, it has been customary for Taoists to design and employ different educational formats, in accordance with original principles of flexibility enunciated in the ancient classic Lao-tzu, or Tao Te Ching. For the purposes of modern projection of the Dragon Gate teaching, Master Wang Liping presents a new philosophical framework, referred to as the Triple World.
The first level of the triple world consists of three realms; people, events, and things. This is the level of experience that has both form and substance, that which is accessible to ordinary human senses and the scientific instruments that have been invented to extend and augment the range of these senses.
The middle level of the triple world consists of the three realms of heaven, earth, and humanity. This level of experience includes that which has form but no substance, and that which has substance but no form. This is already beyond the domain of ordinary understanding. That which has form but no substance is like dreams; that which has substance but no form is called vitality, energy, and spirit.
The highest level of the triple world consists of the three realms of the universe, time, and space. These terms, as used here in the Taoist context, do not have exactly the same meanings as ordinarily understood. Said to be the domain of that which has neither form nor substance, the upper three realms, as experienced through Taoist practice, are found to be even vaster and richer than what are ordinarily experienced by the senses as the universe, time, and space. This is the realm of the Tao.
As is the case with all working Taoist frameworks, this philosophical system is not for the purpose of doctrinaire conditioning or abstract conceptualization, but rather is designed as an expedient means of structuring knowledge, practice, and experience. Special cultivation of the faculties is necessary even to perceive what is beyond ordinary conception; so orientation requires some way of hinting at what cannot be exactly described.
As will be seen in this book, describing outstanding events in the course of Master Wang Liping’s training, each level of the system corresponds to certain Taoist exercises, levels of perception, and modes of self-cultivation. Thus the system leads the mind from the realm of the known into the realm of the unknown, by development and refinement of capacities that ordinarily lie dormant in the uncultivated state.
This book illustrates something of the possibilities of Taoism hinted at in the classics, through the remarkable story of a modern wizard of the tradition. Along the way, the book describes conditions in China past and present, outstanding personalities of yesteryear, principles and practices of Taoist immortals, the origins of the Dragon Gate teachings, and new visions of human potential and the possibilities of the future.
Part I
ENTERING THE WAY
1
The Teachers’ Search
In the year 1960, one of the most momentous events in the secret history of China took place one night on a sacred mountain crag, unknown to all the world. The night was brightly lit by the moon from above and pleasantly refreshed by an ocean breeze from below. Three old men, lonely heirs to an ancient knowledge, sat outside a secret cave on holy Mount Lao, deep in meditation.
Mount Lao, or Lao Shan in Chinese, is not well known to many people outside of China. To lay people there, it is the source of most excellent water; to initiates and pilgrims, it is one of the sacred sites of Taoism, China’s original wisdom tradition, the world’s oldest science. Mount Lao faces the sea on two sides, east and south; steep and imposing, it seems to rise from the very ocean floor. The mountain is scattered with enormous boulders and huge rocks and covered with all sorts of plants and trees. The waves of the sea roar at its feet, white clouds encircle its waist. When you sit on the mountainside gazing at the sea as the sun rises, you feel an enormous sense of transcendence beyond the ordinary world. Thus Mount Lao came to be treasured by Taoist seekers as a place to cultivate realization and develop their essential nature.
Over the centuries, many famous Taoist masters have practiced their secret lore on Mount Lao. Through the years, many Taoist cloisters were built on the mountain; there are also many secret caves in the defiles, covered by foliage and vines, extremely difficult of access and known only to a few.
The three old men sitting on the mountainside that moonlit night in 1960 were masters of the Dragon Gate sect of the Complete Reality school of Taoism, holders of secrets and capacities long believed legendary.
Zhang Hodao, Wayfarer of the Infinite, was the sixteenth-generation Transmitter of the Dragon Gate sect. Eighty-two years old at the time, he had once been the grand physician of the Imperial court of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). This wayfarer was popularly called the Uncanny Physician.
Wang Jiaoming, Wayfarer of Pure Serenity, was a seventeenth-generation Transmitter of the Dragon Gate sect. A disciple of the Grand Master Zhang Hodao, he was seventy-two years