Gold Pavilion. Michael Saso
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MICHAEL SASO
CHARLES E. TUTTLE CO., INC.
BOSTON • RUTLAND, VERMONT • TOKYO
First published in 1995 by Charles E. Turtle Co., Inc. of Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, VT 05759 U.S.A.
© 1995 Michael Saso
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from Charles E. Turtle Co., Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Saso, Michael R.
The Gold Pavilion: Taoist ways to peace, healing, and long life/by Michael Saso.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographic references.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0748-9 (ebook)
1.Meditation—Taoism. 2. Healing. 3. Longevity. I. Huang t'ing ching.
English. II. Title.
BL1923.S27 1995
299'.51443—dc20
95-24661 CIP
First Edition
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95
Frontispiece: Kalachakra. The male image, Mahakala, stands for compassion, the female, wisdom (see chapter 5). Mongol tanka, 16th century.
Book design by Jill Winitzer
Cover design by Sherry Fatla
Printed in the United States of America
To my mother, Beatrice Saso, who wonders what I do in the hills of China and Tibet, and to the monks, nomads, and others who made the sojourning so eventful. To the late Zhuang Chen Dengyun, who taught the meditations of the Yellow Court Canon as interpreted in these pages; the lay Taoists, men and women, of the Yuanxuanxue Yuan in Samdiptam, Kowloon, who practice Taoist meditation in their daily lives; and the Taoist master Shi Daochang, who learned these practices before the Japanese burning of Mao Shan in 1938 and the Red Guard destruction of the sacred mountain between 1966 and 1978 and taught, "quieting the heart" (ding xin) until his death on Mao Shan in 1989.
CONTENTS
Preface ix
CHAPTER ONE
A Brief Introduction to Taoist Meditation 1
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
Centering Meditation; Colors that Heal 71
CHAPTER FOUR
The Gold Pavilion Classic: Taoist Emptying Meditation 99
CHAPTER FIVE
Notes 169
APPENDIX
A Comparative Chart of Taoist History 183
Glossary and Index of Special Terms 185
Bibliography and Further Readings 203
| PREFACE |
|
The Gold Pavilion: Taoist Ways to Peace, Health, and Long Life is a step-by-step description of a way of Taoist meditation from ancient China. The first proponent of this form of meditation was a woman named Wei Huacun (Wei Hua-ts'un), who lived in the fourth century (d. ca. 330 C.E.). Married, with two sons who were employed at the court in Nanjing (Nan-ching, then called Jinling, "Gold Hill"), she received a Taoist ordination and practiced meditation on or near the sacred Taoist mountain called Mao Shan. Her methods of meditation, which called for the emptying of the mind of all negative judgments and the heart of selfish desires, were the foundation of a special kind of Taoism called the Highest Pure school, founded atop Mao Shan (see map). Inner peace and healing were the results of her meditation. The Huang-t'ing Ching, the Gold Pavilion classic, is the text of the meditation attributed to her. The Chinese title literally means "Yellow Pavilion," if translated in the standard dictionary meaning. The color to be visualized with this meditation in the Taoist tradition is a bright gold-yellow. The proper translation of the term, therefore, is "Gold Pavilion."
This book proposes a way to find inner peace and wholeness in a world with little time for quiet contemplation. I am indebted to many Taoists, laymen and -women as well as ordained priests, who explained so patiently the meaning of the Gold Pavilion classic. I am especially grateful to Zhao Zhendong (Chao Chen-tung), director of the Yuanxuanxue Yuan Taoist complex in Samdiptam, New Territories, Kowloon, who provided the written manuals, i.e., prompt books, used in the annotations of chapter 4. The Taoist master Min Zhiting (Min Chih-t'ing) of White Cloud Temple, Beijing; the late Shi Daochang (Shih Tao-ch'ang) of Mao Shan near Nanjing; and Zhuang Jiaxin (Chuang Chia-hsin) of Xinzhu (Hsinchu), Taiwan, explained their own meditative and ritual use of the Gold Pavilion text. To these and many others, I express my thanks.
Though the text of the Gold Pavilion classic is written in metaphor and symbol, the method of meditation is in fact simple and easy. The quelling first of negative judgment, and then of all judgment (the joining of a verb to a noun) is a meditative prelude to a life of inner peace and well-being. The person who learns to meditate as described in these pages finds peace and long life and brings healing to others.
The Gold Pavilion classic, in the interpretation of traditional Taoist masters, teaches the method of emptying prayer in a manner that even the layperson and nonexpert can follow. The reader is introduced to the meditation in chapters 2 and 3. An interpretation of the Gold Pavilion classic is given in chapter 4.1 compare Tibetan Tannic meditation and other forms of apophatic or emptying prayer with Taoist practices in chapter 5. The total body (i.e., Tantric) style of prayer described here is used today in many parts of Tibet and modern mainland and overseas China.
That is to say, the meditations taught in the Taoist Gold Pavilion classic are similar to a genre of prayer techniques shared by many religious traditions. All of these traditions teach the use of body, mouth, and mind together in union when praying. In Buddhism this kind of total body prayer is called Tantric meditation. It is usually learned orally from a master, rather than from a book. Just as we must learn to swim, drive a car, or fly an airplane by taking lessons and then actually swimming, driving, or flying, SO too Taoist Tantric prayer must be learned by "jumping in" to practice.
Masters of Taoist prayer sometimes do write out the directions