The most influential Taoist figure in last century: Chen Ying Ning

[exorcist_1699]

Taoist alchemy , same as acupuncure and the usage of Chinese herbs , are the fortune of all human beings , and should be known to them . However, knowing acupuncture is relatively easy, writing herbal formulas for our diseases is more difficult, successs in attaining Taoist dan can be very difficult.

 

In fact, quite a large portion of Taoist writings are impossible to translate . Unfortunately they include important works such as " A Treatise on understanding the Reality" ( '悟真篇' ), and Yin Fu Jing( '陰符經') ..etc.

 

As more and more foreignors know the Chinese language and have some experience in Taoist practice, maybe this can be changed ?

 

Recent decades of the Chinese history already told us that Taoist legacy ( 道統 ) should not rely on one nation ,or one group of people only . The spirit of a nation , no matter how great it ever has been , can shrink and deteriorate , and become no longer open enough , grand enough to undertake its responsibility in passing the Taoist truth , then things will change...

 

Besides, it is unwise to put all eggs in one basket ..

Edited May 15, 2014 by exorcist_1699

[宁]

Taoist alchemy , same as acupuncure and the usage of Chinese herbs , are the fortune of all human beings , and should be known to them . However, knowing acupuncture is relatively easy, writing herbal formulas for our diseases is more difficult, successs in attaining Taoist dan can be very difficult.

 

In fact, quite a large portion of Taoist writings are impossible to translate . Unfortunately they include important works such as " A Treatise on understanding the Reality" ( '悟真篇' ), and Yin Fu Jing( '陰符經') ..etc.

 

As more and more foreignors know the Chinese language and have some experience in Taoist practice, maybe this can be changed ?

 

Recent decades of the Chinese history already told us that Taoist legacy ( 道統 ) should not rely on one nation ,or one group of people only . The spirit of a nation , no matter how great it ever has been , can shrink and deteriorate , and become no longer open enough , grand enough to undertake its responsibility in passing the Taoist truth , then things will change...

 

Besides, it is unwise to put all eggs in one basket ..

 

I hear ya, yet the mainland community continues to be adamant about it, nothing to the devils haha. I found HK and Taiwan people to be alot friendlier.

[iradie]

宁

For a reason or another you seem to have a certain attachement to the thoughts of people who think in a xenophobic way (hostility to what is foreign) . Whatever the reason for your attachment to these thoughts, and whatever the reasons are for these thoughts, there are different good reasons for not cultivting them too much.

 

The first reason I have from a mainland teacher, who is also a teacher at the Baiyun Guan in Beijing. One of the main rules in Quanzhen is not to criticise other practitioners, but always to criticise oneself. Never to speak evil about others or spread evil thoughts about anybody for any reason.

 

From another of my teachers whose heritage comes from a lineage of doctors who relate to the San Jiao but whose spiritual transmission is the Yi Dao Huan Yuan from Lü Dong Bin, I am trying to learn the vertue of sagacity and compassion. What he transmits is very different from what I have read in the small posts you showed us. I try to imagine what he would say if he was confronted with them. I think he would start to find the reason why these people say that kind of things. Is it a unbalance due to fear? malevolence? a lack of sagacity? What can we learn from these people to develop our own vertues, and develop respect and discernement in our relation to all beings ?

 

I can see many other reasons not to think like some of the people you quote, it could be another discussion.

 

Very few people in the west are interested in Dao jiao, and even less follow the teachings. The highest risk is that it should be ill used. And then, the first victim will be the practitioner him/her self.

[GrandmasterP]

Taoist alchemy , same as acupuncure and the usage of Chinese herbs , are the fortune of all human beings , and should be known to them . However, knowing acupuncture is relatively easy, writing herbal formulas for our diseases is more difficult, successs in attaining Taoist dan can be very difficult.

 

In fact, quite a large portion of Taoist writings are impossible to translate . Unfortunately they include important works such as " A Treatise on understanding the Reality" ( '悟真篇' ), and Yin Fu Jing( '陰符經') ..etc.

 

As more and more foreignors know the Chinese language and have some experience in Taoist practice, maybe this can be changed ?

 

Recent decades of the Chinese history already told us that Taoist legacy ( 道統 ) should not rely on one nation ,or one group of people only . The spirit of a nation , no matter how great it ever has been , can shrink and deteriorate , and become no longer open enough , grand enough to undertake its responsibility in passing the Taoist truth , then things will change...

 

Besides, it is unwise to put all eggs in one basket ..

 

Very wise.

Chinese diabetics who need it are as grateful for insulin as are any other diabetics.

QiGong hospitals are useless for treating compound fractures.

Complementary medicine is good, alternative quackery can be a killer.

[宁]

Iradie,

 

there are many foreigners that have Chinese masters, many of them are kind people. So what?

Their tradition however is very strict and what I shared here is what Chinese speak between themselves, in the inner circles. I am aware that it makes people uncomfortable, but please don't take it as some sort of attachment on my part to whatever, it's just me reporting back from my field work.

These aren't xenophobic people (not in their own view anyways), but people that are very proud of and a bit overly protective to their national cultural treasures. The ones that I quote are one of the more open ones, they allowed me to partake to their discussion. Haha. They are not 'bad' Chinese. They are willing to share, and, sometimes, in rare moments of utter sincerity, they will tell you that what they shared thus far is nothing more than 皮毛。

 

You can take this with disdain and distrust, or you can look it in another way: there's a humongous corpus of knowledge that we don't have access to, yet. And we have no idea what it is. I find that exhilarating. It's like a sad good news, haha.

Edited May 15, 2014 by 宁

[Ya Mu]

QiGong hospitals are useless for treating compound fractures. ...

How many qigong hospitals have you been in to make this sort of statement? I have observed amazing results with many different types of fractures. Removal of pain and decreased healing time. Always, of course, after the patient was treated at a western hospital. In many of the Chinese hospitals there were medical qigong departments alongside of the western medicine department. Do what is needed - the patient was evaluated and sent to the different departments that could help recovery.

Not many studies out on it, though. http://www.qigonginstitute.org/shopping/preview_abstract.php?id=29

 

As to the topic: I think his accomplishments in cultivation were more than history credits. Also, the comments about racism and sharing with other countries - It is true that many of the Chinese Masters felt that western peoples could not learn the arts and it is also true that many felt a patriotism of keeping the arts to China. But much (not all) of this was more due to the inability of the majority of westerners to be able to understand or be communicated to concerning concepts which do not translate well into our languages. I met many of the Masters who were amazed when I was introduced as a western qigong master and they wanted to know (and this was not an insulting type of asking but a genuine asking) how in the world was I able to learn this. Of course, just like here, I met some who I think were racist and who acted aggressively insulting towards me. Quickly, a small story to illustrate this point. I was in a TCM hospital doing observation and met a Tui Na doctor who was extremely insulting and who I thought was a very bad behaving unprofessional doctor. He haughtily offered me tickets to a qigong event sponsored by the Qigong Research Society which had thousands of people coming to. I said no thanks and he told me I would not be able to get tickets anywhere. I have to admit the look on his face was priceless when he came into the event and I was sitting in the front row reserved for the communist dignitaries and accomplished masters. But the majority of Chinese practitioners I met were extremely nice and helpful people, and, JUST LIKE HERE, if a person shows respect, desire to learn, and patience they will find it goes far.

[宁]

. I have to admit the look on his face was priceless when he came into the event and I was sitting in the front row reserved for the communist dignitaries and accomplished masters. But the majority of Chinese practitioners I met were extremely nice and helpful people, and, JUST LIKE HERE, if a person shows respect, desire to learn, and patience they will find it goes far.

 

Haha, nice one.

Yes, well Chinese love foreigners (if American even better), helping or teaching foreigners is a kind of a raise in their prestige, so most of the time we are a means to an end, real friendships are fabulously rare. Most of the guys involved in Taoism and Taoist inner alchemy that I met can't help sneer (occasionally) at qigong practitioners/masters. Most time they are extremely polite, and just as their classics, it's really hard to tell what they mean in fact, for instance when they praise you, for that you'd have to be around when you're not supposed to, lol

Edited May 16, 2014 by 宁

[Walker]

It hardly needs saying,

China is enormous. It therefore also hardly needs saying that for Ning or anybody else to draw conclusions about what might be taught to whom is silly.

 

Attitude is such a simple thing. So simple, and so easy to overlook. Not because we don't realize its power, but because in spite of its simplicity and proximity to us, it is in fact impossible to change without ripping through the rigidities of habit. And yet, succeed just a little bit, and see how much your world changes.

 

Seeming doors seemingly closed to seeming foreigners are of diminished consequence or disappear altogether to the one who sees such blurry, fleeting, laughable distinctions for what they are. Conversely, he or she who gives reality to such props will find they loom very large on one's stage indeed.

 

I once was taken to meet a hermit in a village near Shanghai whose eyes shone in the dark and who had a visible qi field around his body that looked as though drawn by a pencil one centimeter from his skin. Kungfu novel stuff, though he lamented having to teach kungfu--the poor health of students required that they learn to move and stand, however. Well, one of his students treated everybody to an extended soliloquy regarding the inability of foreigners to ever grasp such depths as Dao. After he had exhausted himself and finally quieted down, I replied in a sentence or two that he could not possibly be right--Dao is the nature of all beings, nobody is closer or farther. The sparing-with-words master smiled with eyes that twinkled with compassion that comes from getting the cosmic joke and said, right. And that was the end of the conversation.

 

Don't do fieldwork, don't do research. Hell, don't even do. Doing has never been the Way.

 

Attitude, attitude. The reason all the exoteric teachings go on and on about it is...

[宁]

Nice, Walker, that's what gets people going, stories like that.

You see, every master, however enlightened, has always respected tradition and its rules, they don't break the customs, they uphold them, because they are part of the people, and part of that culture, it is their duty to do so. In that, China, however enormous, and the Chinese, wherever they may be scattered as a people, are bound to it. Its coercive force is what gives them identity. The punishments (metaphysical or otherwise) are severe, 天机不可泄露。

 

Don't do fieldwork, don't do research. Hell, don't even do. Doing has never been the Way.

 

Don't 'Zen' me out, bro', I'm but the messenger 善言不美 美言不信

Edited May 16, 2014 by 宁

[GrandmasterP]

How many qigong hospitals have you been in to make this sort of statement? I have observed amazing results with many different types of fractures. Removal of pain and decreased healing time. Always, of course, after the patient was treated at a western hospital. In many of the Chinese hospitals there were medical qigong departments alongside of the western medicine department. Do what is needed - the patient was evaluated and sent to the different departments that could help recovery.

Not many studies out on it, though. http://www.qigonginstitute.org/shopping/preview_abstract.php?id=29]http://www.qigonginstitute.org/shopping/preview_abstract.php?id=29[/url]

 

As to the topic: I think his accomplishments in cultivation were more than history credits. Also, the comments about racism and sharing with other countries - It is true that many of the Chinese Masters felt that western peoples could not learn the arts and it is also true that many felt a patriotism of keeping the arts to China. But much (not all) of this was more due to the inability of the majority of westerners to be able to understand or be communicated to concerning concepts which do not translate well into our languages. I met many of the Masters who were amazed when I was introduced as a western qigong master and they wanted to know (and this was not an insulting type of asking but a genuine asking) how in the world was I able to learn this. Of course, just like here, I met some who I think were racist and who acted aggressively insulting towards me. Quickly, a small story to illustrate this point. I was in a TCM hospital doing observation and met a Tui Na doctor who was extremely insulting and who I thought was a very bad behaving unprofessional doctor. He haughtily offered me tickets to a qigong event sponsored by the Qigong Research Society which had thousands of people coming to. I said no thanks and he told me I would not be able to get tickets anywhere. I have to admit the look on his face was priceless when he came into the event and I was sitting in the front row reserved for the communist dignitaries and accomplished masters. But the majority of Chinese practitioners I met were extremely nice and helpful people, and, JUST LIKE HERE, if a person shows respect, desire to learn, and patience they will find it goes far.

That is fair comment.

QiGong hospitals are tops for recuperative treatments and treating primary ailments that QiGong works on but QiGong isn't for some immediate trauma.

That was my, poorly made; point.

Insulin using diabetics for another case.

Without insulin they will die but with insulin plus Qigong they are likely to enjoy better all round health than someone just relying on the insulin.

Let's take a purely hypothetical scenario as example....

The last thing anyone needs to hear if they are lying under a bus with their femur protruding and a crowd gathering round is some twonk from the back of the crowd saying...

" let me through, I'm a light worker. Look I got a Diploma recognised by no statutory State regulated health authority beyond the 'doctor in his own mind' guy who sold it to me and printed it. Plus it only took me 500 hours plus a pile of my savings."

What our casualty needs is an ambulance, and fast.

I'm sure that you would agree Michael.

Edited May 16, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Ya Mu]

That is fair comment.

QiGong hospitals are tops for recuperative treatments and treating primary ailments that QiGong works on but QiGong isn't for some immediate trauma.

That was my, poorly made; point.

Insulin using diabetics for another case.

Without insulin they will die but with insulin plus Qigong they are likely to enjoy better all round health than someone just relying on the insulin.

Let's take a purely hypothetical scenario as example....

The last thing anyone needs to hear if they are lying under a bus with their femur protruding and a crowd gathering round is some twonk from the back of the crowd saying...

" let me through, I'm a light worker. Look I got a Diploma recognised by no statutory State regulated health authority beyond the 'doctor in his own mind' guy who sold it to me and printed it. Plus it only took me 500 hours plus a pile of my savings."

What our casualty needs is an ambulance, and fast.

I'm sure that you would agree Michael.

Your hypothetical case is an unheard of practical case. You are stating an extreme view that does not represent what is happening anywhere I know of. Have you actually seen your hypothetical case happening where you live? I sincerely doubt it but if you say you have I will believe you. It sure as heck is not happening here in the USA anywhere I have been. In fact, I know the majority of the medical qigong teachers here in the USA and NONE would suggest any such sort of thing you are stating.

[Walker]

It is a bullshit message.

[GrandmasterP]

Your hypothetical case is an unheard of practical case. You are stating an extreme view that does not represent what is happening anywhere I know of. Have you actually seen your hypothetical case happening where you live? I sincerely doubt it but if you say you have I will believe you. It sure as heck is not happening here in the USA anywhere I have been. In fact, I know the majority of the medical qigong teachers here in the USA and NONE would suggest any such sort of thing you are stating.

 

It was hypothetical Michael.

Just hypothetical.

[Ya Mu]

It was hypothetical Michael. Just hypothetical.

Yes, but you are using the absurd to malign Taoist Arts that apparently you are not familiar with.

[Friend]

Sifu Lomax,

 

The wording is not well chosen by GrandP.

As I understand GrandP, he wants to say one use common sense

and using appropiate remedy for the individual case.

He use hypothetical case of a person have a car accident

and doing the proper common sense of calling an ambulance is right.

 

Also he wants to know is how a Medical Qigong Practioner in Projection

would act in an emergency situation and how he explain the authority

an profession and the crow they neither heard qualifcation of.

 

For example how would you act and what would you explain to the

surrounding persons?

What you say to the concious person who had the accident.

What you do if he refuse to get a projection?

 

Also GrandP.

Even the Qigong Projector is able to use projection by using arms and hands.

One do not need it.

Those who are not authorized will not go out and heal other people.

A practitioner develops a Qi Field. The presence of such person harmonize

the enviroment. He only need use helping hand doing common practise in case

of emergency like first aid and pain decrease and also syncronicity

appears that this person can be helped.

 

A Qigong pratitioner has clearing own sick qi and other disharmonic frequency

so that if in presence of a another person not add sick qi to the him but because

of potential balancing, harmonic energy and frequency is.

The Qigong is giving support by being there and buying time.

 

He helps also that invading forces not harm the person and also linking and activating

sort of 6 sense to other persons to cause syncronicity that this person can be helped.

One do not really see that the cultivation efforts of this practitioner has helped the victim.

 

At other times a practitioner is on place and hindering an accident to happen.

 

This happens at sometimes to me shift to another state and doing unconciousness movement.

In one case a 3 metre fall with head on edge and I could catch him with ease as if he was a pillow

and he weights 90 kilos. Try to catch 90 kilos....

In another case I was pulling someone away then I wanted to talk something then I forgot.

A hard package with tins was falling from 8 meters or so and if I had not pull him away.... well a goner for sure

as it was where he stands before.

But who talks about such things... just coincidence. The aspirin was.

 

Also I keep things so: When the standard do not work then one offer the special abillity.

Humans are beside of being of lights self responsible beings and solve things with

the minimum of higher potential abillity by using external tools.

 

I had a case wher person had accident and crush into packages.

He had pain and it not stopped and his uncle came and ask me

to help. I told him to use pain killers. Well he came back later and he says that

it not works. Gave him a healing, pain gone after 10 mins after 1 min treatment

and well days after he says that his finger seem broken but strangely moveable

but not pain. Most people I ask for treatment has heard or were open minded

because the standard procedure which is more common sense not helped.

 

Other case child was on a shopping cart falling down, I asked if I should something.

Say no and I keep going.

At another time prompt to talk about Qigong and he reveals to be a talent practitioner

of Qigong from Vietnam who is also a boss of restaurant who learns from

medical qigong practitioner who can stop bleeding.

 

A qigong pratitioner learns what to do and where to be and when at a moment.

Also what to say or not to say.

 

I tell you world is full strange things.

[Ya Mu]

and..acute situations respond remarkably to medical qigong and any practitioner who actually trains in medical qigong dang well should know that one calls the ambulance first. The USA has a standardization certification for clinical qigong practitioners; it demonstrates quite well the training that one has to go through to get this certification. I know of no programs in the USA where people would be trained to do anything but common sense in emergency situations - just like the training programs that were in the hospitals of China. My point is that people who have actual medical qigong training are not stupid, are not irresponsible, and are not the type that GP posts about - it is misinformation for medical qigong to be maligned in this way by the uninformed.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Ya Mu

[Simple_Jack]

Chen is also the only person who claims himself having spent 3 yeas on reading the whole Tao Zhan ("道蔵"),ie, nearly the complete Works of all the Taoist writings written in its 2,500-year history .

 

Does he comment in any of his books about this:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=2HS1DOZ35EgC&pg=PA280&dq=Taoism+copy+of+buddhism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=THYeUay1BLOt0AH2o4DoDQ&ved=0CF4Q6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=Taoism%20copy%20of%20buddhism&f=false

 

"...In the early 500s in the south, a canon of Taoist scriptures was formulated, an imitation of Buddhist sutras which came close to plagiarism (Ofuchi, 1979:267)".

[GrandmasterP]

Guys I'm a trained nurse.

I have worked in A&E.

Leave trauma to the trauma teams for goodness sake, let them do their jobs and concentrate upon what you do best.

QiGong is marvellous and works wonders especially in convalescence.

Allopathic medicine.

There is a place for both approaches but 'alternative' procedures that seek to deny life saving treatments are both irresponsible and potentially deadly.

There are far too many self- certificated quack 'doctors' out there.

Proceed with caution aiming for the best from both medical approaches as 'complementary' rather than 'alternative' medicine.

QiGong physicians in the Chinese system undertake as much, sometimes more; training as do regular doctors.

There are outfits here in the west that will 'qualify' someone as some sort of 'medical' practitioner or other in as few as 500 hours with neither outside regulation nor externally validated examination of what has been 'learnt'.

Generously, that works out at 100-days of training.

A Chinese QiGong doctor will have trained for some seven years and most of that on the wards gaining vast experience via many patients.

Effectively some of these commercial 'schools' in the west print their own certificates and validate their own 'awards'.

That cannot be healthy in any system and would not be tolerated in the academy.

Quack medicine can be fatal.

So can allopathic medicine, everyone dies in the long term either way.

There is a world of difference between a Chinese QiGong hospital and some of the store front barber colleges masquerading as educational institutions here in the west.

Caveat Emptor.

Edited May 19, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[GrandmasterP]

and..acute situations respond remarkably to medical qigong and any practitioner who actually trains in medical qigong dang well should know that one calls the ambulance first. The USA has a standardization certification for clinical qigong practitioners; it demonstrates quite well the training that one has to go through to get this certification. I know of no programs in the USA where people would be trained to do anything but common sense in emergency situations - just like the training programs that were in the hospitals of China. My point is that people who have actual medical qigong training are not stupid, are not irresponsible, and are not the type that GP posts about - it is misinformation for medical qigong to be maligned in this way by the uninformed.

 

Wise words Michael.

Call the ambulance if one is needed.

My point exactly.

I was interested in your comment that...

" The USA has a standardization certification for clinical qigong practitioners."

Could you post a link to information on that please?

[iradie]

Should we start a new discussion: chinese medicine in the western countries and how can we make integrative medicine function in Europe, all that from a daoist perspective .....

[Ya Mu]

Guys I'm a trained nurse.

I have worked in A&E.

Leave trauma to the trauma teams for goodness sake, let them do their jobs and concentrate upon what you do best.

QiGong is marvellous and works wonders especially in convalescence.

Allopathic medicine.

There is a place for both approaches but 'alternative' procedures that seek to deny life saving treatments are both irresponsible and potentially deadly.

There are far too many self- certificated quack 'doctors' out there.

Proceed with caution aiming for the best from both medical approaches as 'complementary' rather than 'alternative' medicine.

QiGong physicians in the Chinese system undertake as much, sometimes more; training as do regular doctors.

There are outfits here in the west that will 'qualify' someone as some sort of 'medical' practitioner or other in as few as 500 hours with neither outside regulation nor externally validated examination of what has been 'learnt'.

Generously, that works out at 100-days of training.

A Chinese QiGong doctor will have trained for some seven years and most of that on the wards gaining vast experience via many patients.

Effectively some of these commercial 'schools' in the west print their own certificates and validate their own 'awards'.

That cannot be healthy in any system and would not be tolerated in the academy.

Quack medicine can be fatal.

So can allopathic medicine, everyone dies in the long term either way.

There is a world of difference between a Chinese QiGong hospital and some of the store front barber colleges masquerading as educational institutions here in the west.

Caveat Emptor.

You know I agree with a lot of what you say here in terms of training in terms that it must be good training.

But you seem dead set on insulting western qigong schools which apparently you have no knowledge of. Again, there are none here in the USA that I know of that do not have complete systems of training. Sure their are one-week "certifications" and this sort of thing which do meet your criteria. But the clinical qigong schools I am familiar with, like the one Jerry started run now by Bernard Shannon, the one in Colorado run by Damaris Jarboux, Richard Leirer's school in New Mexicao, J. Michael Wood's school in Nashville, the Institute of Chinese Energy Healing, run by me; all these schools have complete training and each of the instructors DID complete training in China at Qigong Hospitals. My training totality was 21 years apprenticeship plus 3 year intensive until teacher died plus multiple seminars, workshops, and other training; Damaris & Jerry both had extensive training. I know as I was in China when Jerry arrived for his training and I have had multiple interactions with Damaris who I consider one of the best teachers in the USA. I have met and interacted with Richard and J Michael and consider them to be top notch teachers. None of these schools fall into the category you keep harping about. No known training programs in medical qigong do. Now perhaps it is so in your country, so please in the future, if this is the case, precede your comments "this is the way it is in the United Kingdom" - which I sincerely doubt is true but certainly could be as far as I know. Please give a link to the ones in your country you are referring to.

 

Again, none of the schools I know of call themselves "alternative" therapy but do refer to "complementary" therapy - as I have posted hundreds of times here if you would bother to read.

 

National Qigong Association - let me do that for you:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=national+qigong+association&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=national+qigong+association&sc=2-27&sp=-1&sk=&ghc=1&cvid=5c635196930a40d69de30afe1d48f4f4

 

From above:

Level-IV Teacher

1. at least 1000 hours documented formal Qigong training
2. at least 10 years Qigong experience teaching teachers.
3. must sit an interview with members of the Application Review Committee

The bottom line is you have multiple posts where you malign things you have no knowledge of and you do this over and over. Please study and inform yourself before posting these things. One post you had stated (and I am paraphrasing) that there are people practicing "quack" medicine on this board. I have seen none of that. I will say I have seen overenthusiastic practitioners giving advice when someone posted asking for help but none that I saw consisted of "medical advice." In fact most say "Go to your doctor." I am sure that if "medical advice" by a non-physician were posted that the admin would do something about it. Please link to the posts you are referring to.

 

And, since you apparently didn't read where I posted this in this thread, and since you apparently have not much knowledge of clinical qigong, clinical qigong applications have a number of trauma related techniques that work and they work well - NOT as the misinformation you stated.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Ya Mu

[Ya Mu]

Should we start a new discussion: chinese medicine in the western countries and how can we make integrative medicine function in Europe, all that from a daoist perspective .....

Yes, sorry for the thread derail - but I hate misinformation being constantly given so felt like a response needed.

[exorcist_1699]

Does he comment in any of his books about this:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=2HS1DOZ35EgC&pg=PA280&dq=Taoism+copy+of+buddhism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=THYeUay1BLOt0AH2o4DoDQ&ved=0CF4Q6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=Taoism%20copy%20of%20buddhism&f=false

 

"...In the early 500s in the south, a canon of Taoist scriptures was formulated, an imitation of Buddhist sutras which came close to plagiarism (Ofuchi, 1979:267)".

 

 

Canon , simply speaking , is just a collection of books ,so I can't understand how it is severely referred to as " plagiarism "...

 

The important thing is its content. Taoist canon is very different from the collection of Buddhist sutras, for it includes a lot of medicine , medical qigong or daily life health related stuff so detailed that hardly the Buddhist sutras can match to ; for example, at what time ,facing what direction should we do our qigong, or eat what medicine or food , massage what acupuncture points to make our practice progress faster .. etc.

Edited May 19, 2014 by exorcist_1699

[Zhongyongdaoist]

 

 

Does he comment in any of his books about this:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=2HS1DOZ35EgC&pg=PA280&dq=Taoism+copy+of+buddhism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=THYeUay1BLOt0AH2o4DoDQ&ved=0CF4Q6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=Taoism copy of buddhism&f=false

 

"...In the early 500s in the south, a canon of Taoist scriptures was formulated, an imitation of Buddhist sutras which came close to plagiarism (Ofuchi, 1979:267)".

 

Canon , simply speaking , is just a collection of books ,so I can't understand how it is severely referred to as " plagiarism "...

 

The important thing is its content. Taoist canon is very different from the collection of Buddhist sutras, for it includes a lot of medicine , medical qigong or daily life health related stuff so detailed that hardly the Buddhist sutras can match to ; for example, at what time ,facing what direction should we do our qigong, or eat what medicine or food , massage what acupuncture points to make our practice progress faster .. etc.

 

The aspects of the Canon referred to are the Ling Bao scriptures and to describe the creative adaption which the Daoists performed on some of the Buddhist literature as 'plagiarism' is a real disservice to them and definite overstatement, leaning more in the direction of religiously motivated polemics than to open minded scholarship.

 

However, it is a complex issue and one not easy to examine in the format of a forum like this.

 

Stephen Bokenkamp has examined it in his discussion of 'The Wondrous Scripture of the Upper Chapters on Limitless Salvation', which can be found here:

 

Early Daoist Scriptures

University of California Press, 1997

The Wondrous Scripture of the Upper Chapters on Limitless Salvation

Introduction, p. 373

Text, p. 405

 

Another and probably earlier version of this text, more for personal performance, rather than a ritual for more public performance can be found here:

 

Donald Lopez

The Religions of China in Practice

Princeton University Press 1996

Chapter 20, p. 268

The Purification Ritual of the Luminous Perfected, by Stephen Bokenkamp

 

An interesting meditative adaptation can be found here:

 

John Lagerway

Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History

Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987

p. 233

 

In all of these it is easy to see that the Ling Bao texts use Daoist deities, Daoist esoteric anatomy, traditional Chinese Five Element and Yi Jing cosmology, and are animated by and assimilated to concerns that arise within the context of the Heavenly Master and Shangqing traditions. What little remains of the Buddhist texts that were the starting point is incidental and mostly trivial, making the creative content of the Daoist authors the most important aspect of these texts.

[GrandmasterP]

Apologies if my posts seemed 'snippy' Michael, that was not the intention.

Perhaps the situation in the USA is better regulated than here in the UK.

We have enough critics on the outside without falling out amongst ourselves.

I cannot fault your posts here at all and will leave it at that with good wishes.

Edited May 19, 2014 by GrandmasterP