YMWong

YM,

 

are there any resources (public info) about the various CONTEMPORARY lineages and schools of Daoism (at least the ones that are not 'hiding'), available anywhere? Chinese or English texts, it'll do either way.

I'm sure most of the most authentic schools are not public, they are 'held' and preserved by people nobody knows much about, but, eh, if I were China's new president I would make a new law hihi, evey daoist monk or lay practitioner should have a FB account (or at least Weibo, FB is a no-no here, duh), and rigurously post a practice journal.

There are commercial schools, similar to those in the west, which you can find on the web or on various magazines but in most cases they are of poor quality and more about transmitting "techniques" instead of passing an original transmission

One needs luck

YM

Keen viewers of this topic should already sense that the Pre-Celestial School , its way is somehow close to the Zen Buddhist ; both ways are suitable only for a few gifted followers of Taoism and Buddhism , not ordinary people. Masters in Taoist history who belong to this heritage are icons such as :

 

陳致虛, 白紫清, 黃元吉

Exorcist, as I am sure you know there is more than one "Pre-Celestial School" in Chinese history.

The most common, especially in the west, is a derivation of Longmen School made popular by an early English translation of a book （Charles Luk - Taoist Yoga) originally by Master Liao Kong (Qianfeng). If I am not mistaken this is also the one connected with Eva Wong's teacher Master Moy, thou they have a reformed version from Hong Kong.

The one you mention by masters of the likes of Huang Yuanji 黃元吉 is a different school with a separate origin and is commonly referred to as Central School 中派

Best

YM

Loved the part where the author presents some of the mail exchange between Chen and some of the practitioners (females also, describing various 'signs' that happen during practice. I should probably go through it again, having what you said in mind...

Most of the exchanges were made through a Daoist magazine which also had a "letter to the editor" sections, it was the beginning of modern Daoism

YM

IMO beats the hell out of searching for info on daoist lineages on the Wiki

Well, to each their own

YM

Yes I recognize the face, saw different pictures of him. Pity his wife (also a practitioner) died of cancer, and he himself developed severe problems with the stomach, due to the rigurous discipline of bigu (if the Daoist Modern is accurate) ~ possibly due to experimentation with various other practices as well. As far as I know they did not have teachers, so they did alot of trial and error. Eventually he came out fine, lived quite a long life, died almost 90. One thing everybody seems to avoid talking about is achievements, Chinese seem a very practical people, they wouldn't do things just for kicks

Liu Xun's book is perfectly accurate and trustable, and an excellent resource which I suggest to all friends here.

Last century was a time of huge changes in many domains and those included some revolutionary changes to the Daoist Tradition in China, at least the official (public) side of it. Pratictioners like Chen HAD in fact various teachers but had new ideas in mind which brought them to specific choices that generated a new approach to the Tradition.

On one side, people like Chen were instrumental to bring some Daoist practices to the general public and people from this board should be grateful because it is through the effort of those people that Daoism (or at least part of it) spread and was known overseas. At the same time, this "new" approach contributed to send other traditional lines underground where some of those school still remain.

YM

The Daoist Association in 1956, Chen is 4th from left in the first row

YM

 

I see lineages as families of craftsmen that keep in touch over generations whether they still live or not. It's a nice way to preserve and develop a craft and a tradition.

Why do the schools 'get new names'? Do they need to be in tune with the times?

Interesting info, thanks.

As in the case of the Seven Disciples, a new sect is created when a master makes up a new set of standards and regulations different from those he received (often mixing teachings of different masters or through direct intervention of some immortals) and generates a completely new school. That school takes up a new name which is strictly linked to the new Founder who also generates a new lineal poem that will be used for the next generations.

This will be obvious for any pratictioner initiated into a certain school as in deep meditation he might reconnect with the "golden chain" to the Founder of the SPECIFIC school.

A school then can have many lineages i.e. many lines of transmission derived from the same Founder

YM

 

So, do you want to set Wikipedia straight then? I copied the list from their page.

I C

YM

Um...

 

Wang Chongyang, one of the founders of Quanzhen, which is a major school of taoism, had seven disciples. Each disciple founded a separate lineage.

1. Ma Yu (馬鈺) founded the Yuxian lineage (Meeting the Immortals)
   
2. Tan Chuduan (譚處端) founded the Nanwu lineage (Southern Void)
   
3. Liu Chuxuan (劉處玄) founded the Suishan lineage (Mount Sui)
   
4. Qiu Chuji (丘處機) founded the Longmen lineage (Dragon Gate)
   
5. Wang Chuyi (王處一) founded the Yushan lineage (Mount Yu)
   
6. Hao Datong (郝大通) founded the Huashan lineage (Mount Hua)
   
7. Sun Bu'er (孫不二) founded the Qingjing lineage (Clarity and Stillness)
   

All of these belong to the Quanzhen school. Each of them is a separate lineage within the same school.

 

Just one example of what I was talking about.

TM, the seven sects you mention are SCHOOLS/SECTS 派 and not lineages.

In the Chinese tradition a lineage is a particular line of transmission of a certain school/sect, but when the school gets a new name as in the cases you mention we are talking about a new sect and NOT a lineage of the original sect (Quanzhen in this case).

To be more precise, adherents of a LINEAGE of a school all use the same lineal poem and therefore are named with the same character at a specific point in the line. When a new sect is created, as in the case of the seven you mention, a new poem is generated and its adherents will be given a new set of lineal names.

YM

The only reason I know about it at all is that one of Eva Wong's books states that she is a student of both of these two schools. One of her sifu's is a lineage holder of the Complete Reality school and the other a lineage holder of the Pre-Celestial Way school. It doesn't state where each of these schools has a temple located. Only that she has been a practicing student of these 2 lineages for quite a long time with the Complete Reality discipleship going back to her early adult years (early 20s I presume).

Eva Wong's learned Pre-Celestial Way under Moy Lin Shin, who learned it in Hong Kong in a local offshoot of that school (actually very much reformed)

YM

Thank you. That was my original guess. No luck in getting to the bottom of this. I have read many Daoist books related to qigong and neigong but I have never come across 妙通道 or LeiShanDao 雷闪道. No reference in either google or baidu.

This terminology comes from last century Chinese novels.

Books from Jin Yong (Louis Cha) and various others have been so popular among chinese that most (uneducated) people take them for history, thou they are are made up partially from historical data and mainly they are just a work of fiction.

There is no "six schools of Daoism" and those mentioned by Verdesi are partially real and partially fictional, again from Chinese novels.

YM

I can not let you say David Verdesi coined the term although I know he did not. My point is simple

No, your point is "wrong" not "simple"

You don't "know", you have "heard from him" which is a very different thing

You cannot possibly ask people to disprove your point, when you make an assumption you are the one who has to back it up with external validations. If your only validation is "David said so" I am afraid you should stop yelling at the wind

YM

Come to mention, Verdesi did mention in his website that he was able to unify yin and yang and give people electrical shocks. Did he ever do that to you?

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/asia/story/chinese-band-thunderbolt-craziness-performs-electrifying-music-20121119

YM

No problem Veritas

What I am saying basically is that Daoism as well as daoist meditation is a highly specialized kind of science. There is no way in heaven that you can alone, or reading books which are usually written by people who "know things" because they read them in some other books, get anywhere.

And this includes the basics, which are in fact even more important than so-called advanced practice.

If you don't have a teacher but insist you want to learn then find one. If one is not available do something else, as you would be wasting your time at best.

It would be like forest man from the Amazon who has been told about the "amazing iPhone" who wants, alone in the forest, build one.

iPhone is the result of generations of evolution, from electricity to phones to the iPhone, which cannot be replicated no matter one wants to without "transmission" (science evolution throu time and people).

What would the amazon forest guy do with an iPhone manual?

Best of luck anyway

YM

Thanks for the advice buddy! You know what I'm just go throw away all my books right now because you told me so and obviously no ones ever learned anything from books anyways.

For a total illiterate a book is only good if its paper is soft and possibly 3ply

YM

I'm doing a sitting meditation to accumulate yang chi into my dantien ... I'm not getting enough yin chi because I'm not sitting on the ground when I meditate?

If you don't have a teacher to guide you you are not "accumulating yang qi into your dantian" but you are just wasting your time on wishful thinking. I suggest you throw away books and look for a teacher, who will tell you and explain you why to stay on the floor or not.

YM

PS: needless to say, if you had a teacher you would not be asking this kinds of questions here

In short, the seminar I am arranging is different than what others have done in the past.

YM

YM, I fail to see how you posting a photo of Paiyunlou's dorm-style accomodations (which almost every mountaintop hotel offers for budget travelers, by the way) serves to refute anything I said.

I was commenting on your description of the hotel as:

Paiyunlou is one of a handful of higher-end hotels on the summit of the Yellow Mountain where party leaders and other VIP's often stay on retreat.

Dr. Jiang is regularly invited there to practice his medicine for these VIP groups

Given their clientele the level of government scrutiny at these locations is very high.

where you are trying to pass the hotel as some kind of Waldorf Astoria when in fact it ranks 15 on a simple search by price of Huangshan hotels on Tripadvisor http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g303685-Huangshan_Anhui-Hotels.html (the most expensive at 140* up, your Waldorf at 70* up).

So Jiang works or worked at an average hotel "treating" customers, that is ok there is no shame on that, no need to make it sounds like the personal physician of the elite.

If you had travelled around China in the years of its opening, the early 80s, you would have met plenty of "gigong *doctors*" at every possible hotel performing all kinds of "feats": breaking stuff, burning steel chains and then holding them, eating all kind of un edible material and of course "projecting qi".

Needless to say, they all had some miraculous potions to sell after the demo.

Now for some reasons, they usually charge 500 RMB (80 USD) to the locals and 4,000 USD to the foreigners.

A story I have heard just too many times ...

You sir are clearly an internet troll, and I will not be feeding you any longer.

Of course, Grady, of course

YM

YM ... really?

 

If you had any knowledge of the location in mention I seriously doubt that you would have posted it in an attempt to discredit Dr. Jiang.

He no more "worked" there in 2009 than The Rolling Stones "worked" at the Beacon Theatre.

Paiyunlou is one of a handful of higher-end hotels on the summit of the Yellow Mountain where party leaders and other VIP's often stay on retreat.

Dr. Jiang is regularly invited there to practice his medicine for these VIP groups, and sometimes his treatments are available to other hotel guests, as it appears happened here.

Dr. Jiang has accepted these sorts of invitations since at least the early 1990's. Given their clientele the level of government scrutiny at these locations is very high.

My friend, leaving aside for a moment the fact that I was roaming China when you probably had not yet idea of where the country was I suggest you to check the website that I posted. You will be surprised to learn that beds there start at RMB 170/night, a price your millionaire "VIP" pays for ONE GLASS of imported water.

I don't need to tell you that 170 RMB/night is very, very cheap ...

I am sure Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao shared this room in their last visit

YM

In short, this guy thinks that Dr. Jiang must be a scam artist because his experience wasn't just like what he read in martial arts novels.

LOL, you are really totally blind!

The article says that he basically felt tricked by the fact that he and his wife were invited to a "free treatment" and then Jiang managed to scare them about their health and ask for 500 RMB to fix their (non existent) problems.

You are another funny man

YM

I advise people who are seeking teachers of renown to cut out all the fishy middlemen and the unbelievably expensive retreats, and go and meet and talk to these people yourselves.

For those less google-minded JF was working at this Hotel in 2009

http://www.paiyunlou.com/

Ironically, the only two articles about him on the web are complains of having been tricked.

One is the taiwanese already posted, the second is this one http://bbs.travel.163.com/bbs/jiangnan/136945213,1.html

YM

Seeing as we are all about the "proof", where exactly kind I find a link that proves Deng actually said that? I can find ALOT that point to a misquote or an actual no quote at all...

http://cpc.people.co...36/2569304.html

"邓小平1985年10月23日会见美国时代公司组织的美国高级企业家代表团时说

我们的政策是让一部分人、一部分地区先富起来，以带动和帮助落后的地区，先进地区帮助落后地区是一个义务。

邓小平1986年3月28日在会见新西兰总理朗伊时说

我的一贯主张是，让一部分人、一部分地区先富起来，大原则是共同富裕。一部分地区发展快一点，带动大部分地区，这是加速发展、达到共同富裕的捷径。"

YM

Chen Xiaowang has done this demo many times in front of the camera, maybe you can check YouTube under his name. For instance

By the way, there are "tricks" involved so anybody can actually do that

YM

ROTFL!

In short, if your financial house is not in order, Shifu's first instructions to you would likely not be qigong exercises, but....

YM

PS: Deng's famous motto in its literal translation says "get rich first" (then come and visit me, Jiang would add )

You're doing a good job of quoting my posts but not a very good job of reading them.

Again, to my knowledge he publicly retracted his statements to the reporter and asked for the forgiveness of Shifu and his brother students in Taiwan.

I guess English not being my first language I might misunderstand what you say.

When you say his retraction was "public" I suppose it is something that we all can gather confirmation, and not something you are the only one to have information about - in which case I would call it private.

So my question is: how can we get that info from a "public" source?

Am I right in supposing "your knowledge" comes from Zhai and not directly from the person who originally complained on the paper?

I clicked on your link to take a look, but that website is blocked on the mainland, another indication of the politics at play.

LOL, those are politics-politics and not anything related to qigong or to your master!

All of Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Apple publications are forbidden in China as well as most of other material from these two areas. And by the way, I am in China right now as well as when I posted the link which I browsed with a VPN.

YM

踢爆 黃山奇人電功詐財

渡海拜師求打通任督二脈 拆穿是高壓線圈

2007年07月15日

【專案組╱台北報導】武俠小說中上山拜師學藝的情節真實上演。台灣有民眾為練成「庚門氣功」發電絕技，遠赴大陸安徽黃山找翟江峰「打通任督二脈」。但民眾阿德向《蘋果》爆料，他花80萬元、苦學年餘卻發電不成，在翟要求發毒誓守密才被告知，「發電是靠高壓線圈通電，一切都是騙術」。《蘋果》取得翟江峰發功畫面，揭露兩岸假氣功集團騙人內幕。

兩岸騙局

被指騙財的大陸氣功師翟江峰（43歲），自稱少林庚門氣功第5代掌門，徒子徒孫遍布台灣、印尼、馬來西亞、新加坡等地。台灣則由徒弟莊財源（49歲）在高雄開設庚門氣功民俗療法中心，收近40名弟子，不乏空軍將官、台積電工程師、教師等。

稱發功讓水變甜

阿德表示，他兩年前見識到莊財源的氣功發電，「我被電到嚇一跳」，遂花12萬元拜莊為師，前年5月在莊建議下，與師兄弟及家屬十多人，赴大陸黃山找師公翟江峰「打通任督二脈」。

阿德說，翟江峰向徒孫們展現罐拔瘀血、清水變甜、空手劈石及氣功發火等絕技。翟除說發氣變甜的水飲用後能「長命百歲」，還用「強外氣」發電為團員診療；翟用拔罐拔出團員體內果凍狀的血液，稱是「血管阻塞的瘀血」，遊說團員購買單價約6萬6千元台幣的「化血丹」改善。阿德說，團員深信不移，共掏出逾300萬元買約50顆化血丹。

阿德說，他一年間三度前往黃山找師公學藝，「他（翟江峰）叫我練習握電，我還納悶氣功為什麼要握電」，直到翟突然對他說：「你先發毒誓，我就把發功秘訣告訴你。」阿德才知發電的是儀器不是氣功，其餘也都是騙術。

《蘋果》取得翟江峰發功畫面，送交專家解讀。建國中學物理教師鄭永銘一看氣功發電畫面便說：「這是騙人的！只要在身上放特斯拉高壓線圈就能放電。」鄭更說：「氣功發火即魔術師點菸術，是過錳酸鉀加甘油的化學變化。」

台北科技大學電子系教授房漢彬則直斥翟江峰空手劈石說：「一般人也能做到！」借力學原理，物體在強大衝擊力下，撞擊面積小物體就會斷裂。而血液凝固被翟說是瘀血，中國醫藥大學針灸研究所所長李德茂痛斥：「這是自然現象，身體有病的血液才不會凝固。」

台灣師父急撇清

上月20日，記者佯裝患者詢問莊財源氣功發電治病，莊推說：「身體不適，發不出電。」但他仍推銷記者學氣功，「終身6萬元練到會發功」。

《蘋果》昨以電話與莊財源、翟江峰對質。莊說：「我只是帶這些人到大陸，收費多少是他們與大陸人接洽，有沒有被騙與我無關。」記者問翟江峰是否以假氣功騙人？翟則反問：「你有沒有被騙？沒有就不要亂講。」他並推托：「誰說假的你找誰去吧！」還說：「沒有的事你不要問那麼多。」隨即掛斷電話。

翟江峰自稱庚門氣功第五代掌門，卻以魔術手法假裝氣功，誆騙台灣民眾前往黃山拜師學藝。

大陸師公 翟江峰（43歲）

國籍：中國大陸

婚姻：已婚，育有一女

頭銜：庚門氣功第五代掌門

經歷：曾任黃山西海大飯店推拿師

身家：安徽省績溪縣300坪獨棟3層樓庭園別墅、HONDA座車

絕招：氣功發電、氣功發火、空手劈石、清水變甜、罐拔瘀血

台灣師父

庚門氣功第六代傳人莊財源在台開設民俗療法中心，收了近四十名弟子練功。

破解翟江峰「假氣功」

資料來源：建中物理教師鄭永銘、北科大電子系教授房漢彬、中國醫藥大學針灸研究所所長李德茂、投訴人提供影帶內容

手法一 清水變甜（偷拍）

1

翟要女團員買回「樂百世」瓶裝水，打開綠色瓶蓋測試水沒味道時，一旁助手偷偷靠近梳妝台。

2

翟將瓶蓋放在梳妝台，助手假裝好奇察看梳妝台，右手偷偷將原來的瓶蓋換成沾糖的瓶蓋（箭頭處）。

3

　翟拿起被助手換過的瓶蓋，蓋回瓶裝水。

4

　翟假裝發功，並要女團員搖晃瓶身100下，水即變甜。

手法二 罐拔瘀血（模擬）

1

在指縫間藏針（箭頭處），假裝運功卻狂刺患者，再偷偷丟掉針。

2

在指縫間藏針（箭頭處），假裝運功卻狂刺患者，再偷偷丟掉針。

血液中有凝血因子，流出體外自然凝成果凍狀，翟卻謊稱是瘀血。

手法三 氣功發電

打通任督二脈就能發電。

破解：在身上放置特斯拉高壓線圈裝置，當與別人接觸時即構成一個接地的回路並形成放電。

手法四 空手劈石

挑選頁岩，以空手劈斷。

破解：劈石瞬間將石塊稍微離開接觸物體，利用衝擊力讓石塊斷裂。頁岩結構鬆散更易劈斷。

手法五 氣功發火

徒手令報紙或雜物著火。

破解：將過錳酸鉀及甘油分裝置於雜物中，假裝發功趁機捏破，藉過錳酸鉀接觸甘油會燃燒的化學反應行騙。