The cultural Revolution

[mattmiddleton]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. And also how daosim has attempted to recover since then? It always saddens me to hear of such a rigorous sacking of a country's own culture..

[Ryan T.]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. And also how daosim has attempted to recover since then? It always saddens me to hear of such a rigorous sacking of a country's own culture..

 

Everything I have read and heard through various survivors is that the destruction near complete. Taoism in China as it was is now a cartoon of itself. That isn't to say that there isn't still great wisdom to be gathered up. Now it is spread across the planet and China is much less the focal point.

[Vajrahridaya]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. And also how daosim has attempted to recover since then? It always saddens me to hear of such a rigorous sacking of a country's own culture..

 

Yes, quite extensive as far as what I've read. Some deeply hidden temples survived I think and of course not every Taoist master was killed, but man... similar to what they did to the Tibetans, killing lots of Masters and destroying lots of temples and burning lots of irreplaceable texts. But yes, as a result, many great masters escaped to other countries and spread the wisdom and now it's hard to find genuine lineage within the original countries due to a need for deep secrecy.

[Procurator]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. ...

its a myth created by the western propaganda machine, there was no "destruction of daoism" or tibetan buddism for that matter . your government lies to you about pretty much everything, including (surprise!) the world history.

[宁]

its a myth created by the western propaganda machine, there was no "destruction of daoism" or tibetan buddism for that matter . your government lies to you about pretty much everything, including (surprise!) the world history.

Don't worry man, not everyone believes what the Western govermnents are prone to present as "actual fact".

Actually I'm very upset on what the Wold Bank, NATO and America did to my country. One of the things they did?

Wipe out native traditions... not directly, but through micro and macroeconomic games and media. Other things? Destroy local economy and industry... agriculture...

You guys out there, in the East, make sure you won't fall pray to the same.

 

[Vajrahridaya]

its a myth created by the western propaganda machine, there was no "destruction of daoism" or tibetan buddism for that matter . your government lies to you about pretty much everything, including (surprise!) the world history.

 

Oh! So all the Tibetans are lying then? I think you're a victim of another propaganda machine. I know Tibetans personally effected by the Chinese invasion.

 

Of course there's a Western propaganda machine, but none the less.... The Chinese did invade Tibet and kill so many, many Tibetans and there is video footage of this fact. As well they burnt so many Tibetan texts in the Buddhist tradition and destroy and deface so, so many Tibetan temples and there is also video footage of this fact and I have seen it first hand. It is not some CGI make believe either. So TianShi... you are under some very misleading guidance.

[styrofoamdog]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. And also how daosim has attempted to recover since then? It always saddens me to hear of such a rigorous sacking of a country's own culture..

Nan Huaijin brought a great deal of the Daoist canon to Taiwan when he left China, because he was worried about the classics of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism being destroyed. There was another person who also helped to preserve the texts, but I can't remember his name.

 

The Daozang (Treasury of the Dao) is fairly large:

 

http://www.daoistcenter.org/ZH.gif

 

If it were translated in its entirety into English, it would probably take three times the number of volumes, due to how compact ancient Chinese is. If the entire Chinese Buddhist canon were translated into English, it might be around 500 volumes.

[Vajrahridaya]

Don't worry man, not everyone believes what the Western govermnents are prone to present as "actual fact".

 

The Western Government is more on the side of the Chinese Government than the Tibetan people and the indigenous religions of China. It all has to do with money through trade as China is a huge producer of cheap labor, land and many of our companies are outsourced in China. So, the information that we the people of the West including Europe who are just people and have nothing to do with the Government or huge information repressing corporations have on what the Chinese have done to their own people as well as the Tibetan people comes directly from the Chinese and Tibetans effected by the totalitarian regime that rules China right now.

Edited June 26, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[宁]

The Western Government is more on the side of the Chinese Government than the Tibetan people and the indigenous religions of China. It all has to do with money through trade as China is a huge producer of cheap labor, land and many of our companies are outsourced in China. So, the information that we the people of the West including Europe who are just people and have nothing to do with the Government or huge information repressing corporations have on what the Chinese have done to their own people as well as the Tibetan people comes directly from the Chinese and Tibetans effected by the totalitarian regime that rules China right now.

 

For an enlightened being, you sure need to get your facts straight...

 

Try looking into the history of Tibetan invasions on Chinese territories.

And Tibetan religious wars.

You can compare Mao and the Cultural Revolution with the 1st Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and his policy... Emperor Qin performed the same act of cultural erasure. It was a needed action, in the ancient times, as well as in modern times. China was in peril of an imminent conquest... I'll leave it up to you to fill up the how's and why's. It's history, you just need an update.

 

I don't like it that the present head of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, is on CIA's payroll.

But that's another discussion...

Bottom line IMO: there's no such thing as 'the innocent Tibetan side' in this war...

[Ya Mu]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. And also how daosim has attempted to recover since then? It always saddens me to hear of such a rigorous sacking of a country's own culture..

 

During the "cultural revolution" my teacher was jailed for over 17 years and suffered extreme torture because of his advanced practices. His family was moved far away to be used as slave labor in a government farm. But he lived and taught. He said it would not have been possible for him to survive without his qigong practice as they made him go without food or water for long periods of time.

I do think quite a bit was lost as many men of knowledge were killed. But others either survived the outrage or hid in remote locations. So there is still quite a bit of the old knowledge amidst us. Lots of nonsense out there as well.

[Vajrahridaya]

Try looking into the history of Tibetan invasions on Chinese territories.

 

I know about these, but this is minor and old, mostly pre-Tibetan Buddhist times. Also, mostly only done by the Western warriors of Tibet in a very small amount after Tibet was Buddhafied.

 

And Tibetan religious wars.

So minor.

 

You can compare Mao and the Cultural Revolution with the 1st Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and his policy... Emperor Qin performed the same act of cultural erasure. It was a needed action, in the ancient times, as well as in modern times. China was in peril of an imminent conquest... I'll leave it up to you to fill up the how's and why's. It's history, you just need an update.

 

Wow, you're justifying the invasion of Tibet by the modern Communist party of China? The slaughter of millions of Tibetans? The destruction of temples and burning of sacred and unique texts on Tantra and Buddhist history kept by the Tibetans for safe keeping from the Muslim invasions of India? You're seriously off your rocker.

 

I don't like it that the present head of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, is on CIA's payroll.

 

Wow, you're brain washed.

 

Bottom line IMO: there's no such thing as 'the innocent Tibetan side' in this war...

 

Of course it's karmic like anything. But the main reason is Tibetan land for food and head waters in the Himalayas. China just wanted it out of greed. You are a victim of propaganda, this is obvious.

Edited June 26, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[ralis]

The Tibetan invasion and consequent death toll is a small part of the cultural revolution under Mao. This link gives death tolls for Chinese during the revolution. Scroll down for # 7. 44.5M to 72M.

 

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

 

My question is, if someone is invested in a particular religious culture, that culture becomes more important than any other. Why is that? Compare what is known about the cultural revolution in terms of Chinese deaths vs. Tibetan deaths. From the statistics, it looks like a minimum of 44.5 times more Chinese than Tibetan. In spite of this, the Tibetan supporters only seem to have compassion for Tibetans and lack of for the Chinese. There are still death camps in China where many die each year. Why not talk about that!

 

A few more examples: Iraq war, Darfur, Afghanistan and many others.

 

 

ralis

Edited June 26, 2010 by ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

The Tibetan invasion and consequent death toll is a small part of the cultural revolution under Mao. This link gives death tolls for Chinese during the revolution. Scroll down for # 7. 44.5M to 72M.

 

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

 

My question is, if someone is invested in a particular religious culture, that culture becomes more important than any other. Why is that? Compare what is known about the cultural revolution in terms of Chinese deaths vs. Tibetan deaths. From the statistics, it looks like a minimum of 44.5 times more Chinese than Tibetan. In spite of this, the Tibetan supporters only seem to have compassion for Tibetans and lack of for the Chinese. There are still death camps in China where many die each year. Why not talk about that!

 

A few more examples: Iraq war, Darfur, Afghanistan and many others.

 

 

ralis

 

I'm familiar with these facts you posted. I was bringing up something that wasn't already brought up. My compassion is impartial. There's only a limited amount of time that one can devote focus on any amount of issues and as a Tibetan Buddhist... of course I would be more focused on Tibet. There are plenty of others who like different legs of universal compassion will focus on China. This is good.

 

Also, per capita the slaughter was about 1/3rd of the entire Tibetan population which is a harder hit to the culture itself.

[Sahaj Nath]

During the "cultural revolution" my teacher was jailed for over 17 years and suffered extreme torture because of his advanced practices. His family was moved far away to be used as slave labor in a government farm. But he lived and taught. He said it would not have been possible for him to survive without his qigong practice as they made him go without food or water for long periods of time.

I do think quite a bit was lost as many men of knowledge were killed. But others either survived the outrage or hid in remote locations. So there is still quite a bit of the old knowledge amidst us. Lots of nonsense out there as well.

 

 

a similar fate befell a teacher of mine. imprisoned & tortured for more than a decade. i don't remember exactly how long. i used to be a pretty extreme left-wing socialist, and even an apologist for Mao until i began studying the arts and my teacher made it real and personal for me.

 

keeping to the topic, he told me about the systematic extermination of the hermits in the mountains. Taoist, Buddhist, and "old religion". his teacher was a buddhist hermit who was killed, and came to him in-spirit after he had been paralyzed to help him mend his body in the dungeon.

 

more important than the written materials was the way of life that was lost, he would say. He believed firmly that all the secrets could be found again if the conditions which gave rise to them could be preserved. he felt the West was most likely to allow for those conditions without the threat of violent suppression, and so he chose an american heir for his lineage.

[gendao]

a similar fate befell a teacher of mine. imprisoned & tortured for more than a decade. i don't remember exactly how long. i used to be a pretty extreme left-wing socialist, and even an apologist for Mao until i began studying the arts and my teacher made it real and personal for me.

 

keeping to the topic, he told me about the systematic extermination of the hermits in the mountains. Taoist, Buddhist, and "old religion". his teacher was a buddhist hermit who was killed, and came to him in-spirit after he had been paralyzed to help him mend his body in the dungeon.

Exactly, like many left-wing ideologies - it's a very seductive Trojan Horse to naive idealists. Which is why such meme warfare is so stubbornly dangerous and destructive - and I felt the need to speak out strongly against it. It already destroyed China (including Tibet) & many other countries...and I don't want to see history repeat itself anywhere else.

 

And the Western government is on neither the Tibetan or Chinese side. They are on their own side, as John Perkins has detailed. They lust after control of the minerals and fountainheads in the Himalayas there. So, they are merely tooling the Tibetans against the Chinese to gain influence there...while trying not to piss the Chinese off too bad since we owe them nearly a trillion dollars..

 

I think the levels of attainment are still farrrr higher in China though. Many of the highest masters are still there. However, I think many lineages got broken during the Cultural Revolution (typical leftistnese BS, lol) and the next generation of torchbearers got radically reduced. They were too busy getting "reeducated" in the Red Guard..

Edited June 26, 2010 by vortex

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

i love how people (read as: i hate you all so fucking much for) think they "need" governments, countries nations, and politics which dominate life ways.

 

 

I hope SOMETHING beneficial comes of all this NOW. im ready to leave this god forsaken rock. i hate it here.

 

Love the place, hate the human populations. time to go on a homicidal/suicidal rampage and kill till i am killed.

Edited June 26, 2010 by Stoner Shadow Wolf

[Brian]

..

[mjjbecker]

During the "cultural revolution" my teacher was jailed for over 17 years and suffered extreme torture because of his advanced practices. His family was moved far away to be used as slave labor in a government farm. But he lived and taught. He said it would not have been possible for him to survive without his qigong practice as they made him go without food or water for long periods of time.

I do think quite a bit was lost as many men of knowledge were killed. But others either survived the outrage or hid in remote locations. So there is still quite a bit of the old knowledge amidst us. Lots of nonsense out there as well.

 

What Michael said. The knowledge certainly wasn't wiped out, but it was a terrible period in China's history.

 

I recall from Wang Liping's biography that he was tasked with codifying the daoist canon, so it seems there at least a lot of the written information was not lost. How the buddhist canon has faired I don't know. The Longmen school is not the only one to have close links to buddhist and daoist practices, so maybe much has been preserved. I hope so.

 

I suspect that within the Chinese communities around the world there are some remarkable teachers. Some groups are very private though and I doubt they will show their hands anytime soon.

 

Yes, lots of nonsense out there. Lot's of very good openly available information for those who are prepared to spend the time looking, and thinking. It's the thinking part that often seems to be the hardest though.

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

Recently China brought some Buddhist relics back to be kept at one of its main temples. If I remember correctly they were supposedly some bones of the Buddha(small parts).

 

It was aired on TV, they had a whole ceremony for it. Perhaps it's a step in the right direction, no matter the relics where genuine or not.

 

There are very few Chinese people themselves who will deny the destruction caused by the cultural revolution, when they are being honest. Their not happy about it either.

[goldisheavy]

Can anyone tell me how much of a catastrophe the Cultural Revolution was to Daoism in China at the time, eg - the extent of lost texts and sacred places etc. And also how daosim has attempted to recover since then? It always saddens me to hear of such a rigorous sacking of a country's own culture..

 

Nothing of worth got destroyed. Everything you may want to know is still available to you the same way Lao Tzu learned of it.

[mattmiddleton]

thanks everyone for your input..as the last post mentioned, mysterious essence is eternal, a direct experience of dao is available to all with or without the help of idols and temples. but how sad it makes me to read of the killings of the mountain hermits. or am i fooled like the chap who said none of this happened? holocaust denial? ach i dunnow.

[goldisheavy]

thanks everyone for your input..as the last post mentioned, mysterious essence is eternal, a direct experience of dao is available to all with or without the help of idols and temples. but how sad it makes me to read of the killings of the mountain hermits. or am i fooled like the chap who said none of this happened? holocaust denial? ach i dunnow.

 

I agree it's sad, because the hermits didn't bother anyone. They weren't extremists. Nor am I aware of any of them agitating against government or anything. They were killed off because they are independent, that's all. Just because they are the only types of men and women who wouldn't dance to someone else's tune, which powers that be perceived as a threat, insecure as they are. That's also the same reason they filter Internet in China -- insecurity.

[styrofoamdog]

What Michael said. The knowledge certainly wasn't wiped out, but it was a terrible period in China's history.

 

I recall from Wang Liping's biography that he was tasked with codifying the daoist canon, so it seems there at least a lot of the written information was not lost. How the buddhist canon has faired I don't know. The Longmen school is not the only one to have close links to buddhist and daoist practices, so maybe much has been preserved. I hope so.

 

I suspect that within the Chinese communities around the world there are some remarkable teachers. Some groups are very private though and I doubt they will show their hands anytime soon.

 

Yes, lots of nonsense out there. Lot's of very good openly available information for those who are prepared to spend the time looking, and thinking. It's the thinking part that often seems to be the hardest though.

The Chinese Buddhist Canon was disseminated to Japan and Korea during ancient times, and it was never actually destroyed in China. In fact, there were a few texts from the Yogacara school of Buddhism that were missing from the Buddhist canon in China long ago. In the 20th century prior to the revolution, the Chinese rediscovered these additional texts in Japan (originally transmitted by China in ancient times), and there was some real excitement among Chinese Buddhists.

 

There was a lot of work done to standardize and modernize the understanding of Buddhism in the early 20th century in China, but that movement was destroyed by the Revolution and all the turmoil. In recent years it has resurfaced, and there are again Buddhists in China who are studying Yogacara. There is even some talk of using it to provide an extremely detailed analysis and critique of modern psychology. The Yogacara analysis of consciousness is so detailed and systematic that someone who has a deep understanding of it can analyze any phenomena of the mind with it.

[Procurator]

.... the killings of the mountain hermits. or am i fooled like the chap who said none of this happened? holocaust denial? ach i dunnow.

its pretty easy to know. just connects the dots

they prepare to bomb iran now - so they lie to you about iranian atrocities.

they were preparing to bomb irak 8 yers ago - so they were lieing to you about irak' wmds.

they ware preparing to bomb afganistan 10 years ago - so they were lieing to you about taliban atrocities.

they were preparing to bomb china 50 years ago -...............can you connect the dots?

[styrofoamdog]

its pretty easy to know. just connects the dots

they prepare to bomb iran now - so they lie to you about iranian atrocities.

they were preparing to bomb irak 8 yers ago - so they were lieing to you about irak' wmds.

they ware preparing to bomb afganistan 10 years ago - so they were lieing to you about taliban atrocities.

they were preparing to bomb china 50 years ago -...............can you connect the dots?

And they were planning to bomb Germany 70 years ago, so they invented the Holocaust too, right? When every other country knows otherwise, and there are photos and video footage for everyone to see, it's only the conspiracy theorists and the cooks who believe otherwise. It is well known that many groups faced persecution during the Cultural Revolution, and the modern government of China does not try very hard to hide this fact.

 

These are facts that the global community and the U.N. have known about from the very beginning. It was not even acceptable to practice Daoism in China 20-30 years ago, so the government promoted Qigong as a secular alternative for health rather than spiritual practice. Not only that, but it is still impossible to have a real party position in the government if someone does not declare themselves to be atheist.

 

If you go anywhere outside of China, all the Chinese know about these things, as well as the other citizens. Most native Chinese people know about them as well, if they are not so ignorant as to stick their fingers in their ears and drown out the reality with the standard line of propaganda. The only people who deny these things are ignorant shills who cannot bear to face the reality.