The Legend of the Grandmaster

[Jonah]

Another excerpt from David Palmer's "Qigong Fever."

 

In this one, Palmer explains the marketing strategies that modern-day entrepreneurial qigong masters in China have been using since the 1980s (and much longer than that as you will see). The key is an easy to read, entertaining and action-packed biography complete with mystical teachers, mountain hermitages, and superhuman powers.

 

 

THE LEGEND OF THE GRANDMASTER

 

After the Cultural Revolution, as qigong once again became politically and culturally legitimate, the Chinese government encouraged formally sanctioned teaching of qigong to the masses. High-level teachers were federated into state-sponsored associations affiliated to state medical, scientific and sports authorities. Traditional teachers could now practice their healing arts and create charismatic networks under the guise of qigong.

 

Unprecedented in China's history, this mass phenomenon of masters who 'came out of the mountains' (chusan) to publicly teach techniques derived from folk, Taoist, Buddhist, martial and medical traditions. In terms of numbers, traditions which had previously been limited by primitive forms of communication to small networks of disciples were spread to millions of practitioners in the space of a few years.

 

This spread of qigong occurred in the context of Deng Xiaoping's policy reforms which opened up the conditions for a religious revival in the 1980s. In the countryside this revival manifested itself through the rebuilding of temples destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and through the reconstitution of ritual networks. In the cities, however, the renewed interest in religion was more diffuse: books on religious subjects found a large readership and religious themes such as the 'Journey to the West' were smash hits. 'Martial arts fever' added to the spiritual ferment. Kung fu novels and films from Hong Kong and Taiwan flooded mainland theaters and bookstalls, fueling the growth of a burgeoning martial arts subculture. Itinerant martial arts troupes resurfaced and entertained crowds with their exploits. Blockbuster movies such as 'Shaolin Temple' triggered a cult following among youth, who flocked to the temples of Shaolin, Wudang and Emei in search of the secret teachings of a master.

 

These films and novels depict Buddhist monks and Taoist masters who can fly, disappear and reappear, and read people's minds -- abilities they are said to have acquired through the mastery of 'inner cultivation' (niegong), which involves the body, breath and mind control exercises associated with qigong. For thousands of kung fu fans, it thus became apparent that the magical feats fo the past and the stunts of pulp films were not fiction: they could be mastered through initiation to a qigong master. Qigong masters, with their miraculous healing abilities and Extraordinary Powers, soon came to be seen as living incarnations of the wizards of kung fu culture.

 

Increasingly qigong masters were becoming charismatic figures who stole the limelight from the body techniques, which one did not even need to practice: one could be cured directly by the master. The qigong master combined in his own body the powers of the magicians of ancient times and the knowledge of a great scientist.

 

Legends grew around the most famous masters, many of whom were said to have demonstrated miraculous powers from their early childhood in a poor countryside surrounded by mountains, grottoes and temples. Qigong literature and the publications of the different denominations are full of biographies which share a mythical structure often containing common themes, and reminiscent of a Chinese tradition of hagiographic* literature going back at least as far as the "The Biographies of the Immortals" of the first century B.C.

 

(*hagiographic - Hadn't heard of this word before. It's from the root word hagiography.

From wikipedia: Hagiography is the study of saints. A hagiography refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically the biographies of ecclesiastical and secular leaders.

The term "hagiography" has also come to be used as a pejorative reference to the works of contemporary biographers and historians whom critics perceive to be uncritical and even "reverential" in their writing.)

 

Typically the future qigong master is presented as a country boy or girl who grows up under the harsh peasant living conditions of his or her family, and stands out for his or her unique qualities: intelligence, cunning, filial piety and precocious manifestation of a miraculous power. Typically the masters were said to have received initiation from as early as the age of four from a succession of mysterious sages, monks and masters representing all the esoteric traditions of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Chinese medicine and martial arts.

 

The turning point in the child's life is an encounter with an unknown sage. A mysterious personage whose identity is unknown, lacking a fixed abode and wandering from place to place, sometimes a Buddhist monk or a Taoist hermit, a 'superman' capable of working miracles, an old man seeking a disciple to pass on an ancient secret teaching, the sage identifies the future disciple who is still in his or her tender childhood years. The sage appears in the child's dreams, watches during his or her games, magically corrects behavior, initiates him or her into moral and esoteric secrets, and gives a strict training regimen including martial arts, meditation, healing techniques and the study of scriptures.

 

After a period of incubation, during which the young master conceals his or her abilities, the initiator gives the command to 'go out of the mountains' (chushan) -- to manifest his or her powers and knowledge to the public, in order to deliver the world from its agony. Thus the qigong master doesn't choose to become a master: he or she is chosen by the sages who transmit the secret teaching. The meeting between the sage and the disciple is often considered to be predestined -- the yuanfen or fruit of karma. Invested with a mission, the master belongs to a different category from common people. His or her exceptional nature expresses itself through the ability to transcend physical laws, giving the capacity to heal incurable diseases, and in some cases to even control the powers of the universe.

Edited February 20, 2008 by Jonah