Tracing back Lineages

[Simon1983]

Hi Bums,

 

I've got a question about the history and documentation of lineages.

 

Now im just a newbie here but i've been reading into different posts, articles etc. and i tend to come across the statement of lineages. Now this intrigues me as i have a copy of my own family tree to the late 1600's (which gets rather wishy washy the further back it goes, but i suppose i cant ask much being a decendant of convicted criminals....Go Australia!).

 

Now purely for example which the info could be very wrong (excuse my newbism) lets say that a shifu's lineage can be traced back to Damo, the legendary monk who settled in the Shaolin Temple (e.g. 400-500AD?)

Leaving 500-600 years of information passing, how on earth do people trace back a lineage of teachers through 500/600 years???

 

Is there a standard process that people follow? literature? scrolls? books? or is this information just kept up in your head? and passed on from teacher to student over 500/600 years? without chinese whispers taking effect?

 

Also i have found that some people have an ego problem and there lineage has to be longer than the next persons which i find quite amusing...hehe

 

Anyways guys, any input into this question i have would be very appreciated as i am fairly clueless in regards to this area.

 

Thanks.

[mouse]

Simon1983,

 

In my opinion lineages don't mean much. Many masters are not great teachers. It is often you see someone from a reputable lineage have no real skills and have a huge following due to the name. I can name a few but best not to.

 

My teacher often says his lineage is from Buddha.

 

Enjoy your practice.

 

mouse

[Simon1983]

Im hearing ya Mouse, I have held back my personal opinion in regards to "Lineage Statements" but i am still curious as to how people keep track and records of one or several lineages over hundreds of years if not longer.

 

Ba Dum Pshht.

[Taomeow]

Im hearing ya Mouse, I have held back my personal opinion in regards to "Lineage Statements" but i am still curious as to how people keep track and records of one or several lineages over hundreds of years if not longer.

 

Ba Dum Pshht.

China was literate and bureaucratic for thousands of years. Records were kept. Family was the center of Chinese civilization's system of values, and all things pertaining to family life were of the greatest importance. Last names were not numerous -- only about a hundred, all of which are traceable to the primary seven even today. Anyone knowing their family name could trace their family history waaaay back. Something only royalty and aristocracy could boast of in Europe -- in China, peasants had access to that, a scholar could do it for the illiterate person via an official route, but even the illiterate learned their family history through oral transmissions for many generations. This used to be universally human rather than specifically Chinese, by the way. Even today, I know a physician who used to be a farmer's son in Nigeria, who can recite his family history as far back as you have the patience to endure -- he learned it all by heart by age six.

 

Things without roots, without history, without "conception, growth, maturation, fruition" (tao's proprietary style of manifestation) -- whether MA or anything else -- are like hydroponics vegetables, flavorless... or like GM crops, healthless... like that poor lab mouse they crossed with a glowing jellyfish -- so it glows in the dark... very pretty... but what's the quality-of-life value, for the mouse, of having developed a non-lineage based, arbitrarily superimposed new trait which, for all practical purposes, translates into "nowhere to run, nowhere to hide?.."

[mouse]

China was literate and bureaucratic for thousands of years. Records were kept. Family was the center of Chinese civilization's system of values, and all things pertaining to family life were of the greatest importance. Last names were not numerous -- only about a hundred, all of which are traceable to the primary seven even today. Anyone knowing their family name could trace their family history waaaay back. Something only royalty and aristocracy could boast of in Europe -- in China, peasants had access to that, a scholar could do it for the illiterate person via an official route, but even the illiterate learned their family history through oral transmissions for many generations. This used to be universally human rather than specifically Chinese, by the way. Even today, I know a physician who used to be a farmer's son in Nigeria, who can recite his family history as far back as you have the patience to endure -- he learned it all by heart by age six.

 

Things without roots, without history, without "conception, growth, maturation, fruition" (tao's proprietary style of manifestation) -- whether MA or anything else -- are like hydroponics vegetables, flavorless... or like GM crops, healthless... like that poor lab mouse they crossed with a glowing jellyfish -- so it glows in the dark... very pretty... but what's the quality-of-life value, for the mouse, of having developed a non-lineage based, arbitrarily superimposed new trait which, for all practical purposes, translates into "nowhere to run, nowhere to hide?.."

 

Taomeow,

 

You're correct in being able to trace back roots and record keeping. My family can trace back our roots all the way to Fujian, Jin Men where my great great grand father was a Qing naval court official. Once in Jin Men, we can trace it further through the Huang family archives but I'm not sure how far that actually goes.

 

However to say that things without roots, history, are like hydroponic vegetables would not be correct. That would be attaching to views of who you think you should be.

 

Views are dangerous things and would one of the 10,000 things in the 'world'. Why not simplify to the 3, then to the 2 and then back to the one?

 

mouse

[de_paradise]

A long lineage is certainly not the weirdest thing people will tell you in cultivation, not by a long shot. Why shouldnt people have been able to keep track of time? Or the lineage ascended grand master could have communicated it. Why doubt what you cannot prove or disprove?

[The Cloudwalking Owl]

Hi Bums,

 

I've got a question about the history and documentation of lineages.

 

Now im just a newbie here but i've been reading into different posts, articles etc. and i tend to come across the statement of lineages. Now this intrigues me as i have a copy of my own family tree to the late 1600's (which gets rather wishy washy the further back it goes, but i suppose i cant ask much being a decendant of convicted criminals....Go Australia!).

 

Now purely for example which the info could be very wrong (excuse my newbism) lets say that a shifu's lineage can be traced back to Damo, the legendary monk who settled in the Shaolin Temple (e.g. 400-500AD?)

Leaving 500-600 years of information passing, how on earth do people trace back a lineage of teachers through 500/600 years???

 

Is there a standard process that people follow? literature? scrolls? books? or is this information just kept up in your head? and passed on from teacher to student over 500/600 years? without chinese whispers taking effect?

 

Also i have found that some people have an ego problem and there lineage has to be longer than the next persons which i find quite amusing...hehe

 

Anyways guys, any input into this question i have would be very appreciated as i am fairly clueless in regards to this area.

 

Thanks.

 

 

I think it's important to remember that a lot of lineage stuff consists of "wild history". For example, most scholars I have read suggest that Damo never really existed and is instead a mythical figure. I have read a fair amount on this subject with regard to Zen buddhism (which puts a huge emphasis on lineage for theological reasons) and it turns out that a fair number of Zen masters were given their "inka" (or license as a Zen lineage holder) for reasons that had nothing at all to do with attainment.

 

It is good to have a handle on one's history, but unfortunately lineage has become a huge crutch that gets in the way of honest study. Having said that, I have a Master's degree from a Western University and if you think about it, that is pretty much the same thing as being given a lineage license in a tradition that is traceable all the way back to Socrates and Plato. The difference between it and an Eastern lineage license is that I can do research and work back through all the generations, and there is a collective process that involves oversight from a lot of various government officials and official bodies. In contrast, the lineage system for a lot of Eastern schools are totally idiosyncratic---which will inevitably cause problems. (I have a lineage chart from the school that initiated me. The few lines above my teacher might be useful, but beyond that it enters looney land---culminating in the Laozi and Damo.)

 

One final note. Traditionally in China, I believe that religious people were government regulated. If you read a lot of novels you will see that Daoists had to have a license from the government to practice. (This is still the case.) This involved sanctions for misbehaviour. For example, I am reading a translation of Journey to the West, and at one point the Tang Monk and his disciples save a female and let her tag along with them in the wilderness. One of the arguments that Monkey makes against this is to say that if any government officials find a Buddhist monk travelling with a woman he would be executed and his disciples punished. In this sort of context licenses and lineage documents have practical importance.

[Franklin]

there is a simple way that some lineages keep track of where everyone is and if people are actually in the lineage

 

i have seen this method used in some martial arts and also some lineages of taoist practice

 

i don't know what the official chinese term is but there will be a generation poem

 

each character in the poem represents a generation and if someone brought into the lineage they will be given a name (the same character as the generation they correspond to)

 

this is also a way to substantiate that someone is in the lineage- as they should know the generation poem and be able to answer certain questions...

 

but this is an example form a more formal tradition

 

in my experience most people teaching do not have such credentials which is fine

and tracing the lineage back in a normal way (i learned from so and so who learned from so and so) is a good way to understand where something came from

 

but this "normal" method of tracing lineage is harder to substantiate

 

i think the best thing is to look for a teacher who is skilled and can teach those skills

(and maybe one who does not make wild claims that are hard to check on- personally i find this to be a red flag)

 

franklin

[Taomeow]

Taomeow,

 

You're correct in being able to trace back roots and record keeping. My family can trace back our roots all the way to Fujian, Jin Men where my great great grand father was a Qing naval court official. Once in Jin Men, we can trace it further through the Huang family archives but I'm not sure how far that actually goes.

 

However to say that things without roots, history, are like hydroponic vegetables would not be correct. That would be attaching to views of who you think you should be.

 

Views are dangerous things and would one of the 10,000 things in the 'world'. Why not simplify to the 3, then to the 2 and then back to the one?

 

mouse

I'm a sucker for biodiversity. I think simplifying 10,000 things to 3, then 2 and so on is what our civilization is doing anyway. And a horrible thing to do to life it is too. On this continent, not 10,000 but 15,000 languages were spoken by its native inhabitants before this "simplifying" Indo-European civilization's advent. Not one but hundreds of cultural traditions, rich and diverse, thrived without invalidating each other. Not one but millions of creatures great and small, as different and distinct as tao would have them, roamed free. And all of this owed its existence to the fact that people held a certain "attachment." Attachment to the land. Attachment to their history. Attachment to life. And life was real, not artificial, while they held this attachment.

 

If "attachment" is a bad word, consider me a bad girl. Oh, and there's nothing but a "view" anyone can share online -- not me, not you... it's the nature of the medium. In real life, I could, e.g., make my point instead by serving you a labor-of-love meal whose lineage could be traced to my ancestry and yours, because I had both transmitted to me! If you told me that you prefer just one thing though, and simplified at that --

then you would have to turn it down and munch on uncooked rice instead in order to prove your point. Everything else would be a "view."

Edited August 19, 2008 by Taomeow

[Smile]

My father's lineage came from that first "thing" that realized it can crawl out of the water and breath without killing itself. It sunbathed untill it saw a seaweed goo nearby. It humped the goo (which was my mom's side) before it went back to the ocean.

 

True story.

 

 

 

Thus, the first dual-cultivation practice was born.....

[freesun]

Edited August 19, 2008 by freesun

[Simon1983]

Thanks for all the input guys n gals, much appreciated.

[autopoetic]

I never asked my teacher for documentation! Perhaps I should? I am curious about the lineage, which he claims is about 700 years old. But it never seemed that important. One has to approach any practice with a certain degree of skepticism, I think. It is up to everyone to confirm its authenticity for themselves. So even if the lineage is only 70 years old instead of 700, I wouldn't really feel much different about it - I've confirmed its effects in my own body/mind.

[mouse]

I'm a sucker for biodiversity. I think simplifying 10,000 things to 3, then 2 and so on is what our civilization is doing anyway. And a horrible thing to do to life it is too. On this continent, not 10,000 but 15,000 languages were spoken by its native inhabitants before this "simplifying" Indo-European civilization's advent. Not one but hundreds of cultural traditions, rich and diverse, thrived without invalidating each other. Not one but millions of creatures great and small, as different and distinct as tao would have them, roamed free. And all of this owed its existence to the fact that people held a certain "attachment." Attachment to the land. Attachment to their history. Attachment to life. And life was real, not artificial, while they held this attachment.

 

If "attachment" is a bad word, consider me a bad girl. Oh, and there's nothing but a "view" anyone can share online -- not me, not you... it's the nature of the medium. In real life, I could, e.g., make my point instead by serving you a labor-of-love meal whose lineage could be traced to my ancestry and yours, because I had both transmitted to me! If you told me that you prefer just one thing though, and simplified at that --

then you would have to turn it down and munch on uncooked rice instead in order to prove your point. Everything else would be a "view."

 

Attachment to views are what causes so much suffering in the world at the moment. Your tribe, my tribe. Sunnis, Shiites, Muslims, Hindus, etc.

 

Releasing the heart from such bounds is the path to liberation.

 

Perhaps the word used was not appropriate. Instead of "simplifying" it could be better represented by "return".

 

Return to the 3, 2 and the ONE.

 

Whether or not life back then is considered real or artificial, they're all still trapped in samsara.

 

There is a story shared by this monk (Bikkhu Buddha Dhatu) who has the divine eye and can see past lives and the karmic links in people. It was the hungry ghost festival and he noticed a small girl offering incense at her ancestral altar as taught by her parents.

 

He laughed when he saw the karmic links and said that the girl was offering incense to herself as she was her grandmother reborn as her daughter's child. The irony of such attachment to lineages is apparant.

 

mouse

[Apech]