Kaigo The Way of the Qigong Master. Life Story of Master Wang Liping

Translator's Preface

My acquaintance with the book, offered to the attention of the reader, happened at the end of 1991, shortly after its release in China by the Huaxia publishing house. This was preceded by one curious incident, which I often recall, because it testifies both to an interest in Taoist culture and to some "lightweight" ideas about the possibility of "mastering" it.

Once a young man came to my house (I was living in Vladivostok at the time) and introduced himself as a lifeguard from one of the famous Vladivostok beaches. He said that he was interested in Taoism and dreamed of becoming a novice in some Chinese Taoist monastery. Heard, they say, that I'm going to China, so will I find out for him how real his dream is? When I asked if he knew Chinese and how he was going to communicate with the monks, he answered that he would “learn it if necessary.” Although I did not take his intentions seriously (as far as I know, they had no consequences), the meeting served as a certain stimulus for some of my investigations. By that time, I had been reconstructing and translating the text of Lao Tzu for several years, but knew practically nothing about modern Taoism. One of the goals of the then planned trip to China was to visit Taoist monasteries, which relatively recently resumed their functioning after the cataclysms of the “cultural revolution”. At the very least, I should have known how the Taoists were trained.

At that time I was able to visit several famous Taoist monasteries and talk with both young monks and some teachers of monastic schools. In most cases, they were willing to talk, but they were not too verbose, and my curiosity was not satisfied. Once in the city of Xi'an, in Baxiansi, the monastery of the Eight Immortals, one of the monks whom I questioned noticed in my hands a book by Chen Kaiguo and Zheng Shunchao "The Asceticism of the Great Dao", which had just been bought in the monastery bookstore. “Read this book,” he said, “and you will know everything.” More than half a year passed, however, until her hands reached her reading. The book amazed me. I talked a lot about her and made a report at a scientific seminar, my stories always aroused interest and requests to translate the book, but a lot of water has flowed under the bridge until the opportunity arose take on the translation. Soon I discovered that an abridged translation of this work had already been published in the book of the famous orientalist V.V. Malyavin "Ascent to Tao" (Moscow, Natalis publishing house, 1997). It didn't chill me. I think it will be interesting for readers to get acquainted with the full Russian translation. The book talks about extremely subtle and almost unknown things, and every detail here is precious.

The authors of the book, two young men, graduates of Beijing universities, who studied economics and worked successfully in their specialty, felt the need to become more deeply acquainted with Chinese traditional culture, which was practically unknown to them. The decade of the "cultural revolution" created a cultural divide that separated her young contemporaries and those who grew up immediately after her from the sources of traditional Chinese spirituality. This gap turned out to be fraught with unexpected consequences for society and the individual, one of which was called the “loss of national identity”, a gaping emptiness in the soul and the question born from it (according to Lao Tzu, “Presence is born from Absence”): “What does it mean to be Chinese?"

Such a question, like many others, was asked by Chen Kaiguo and Zheng Shunchao. They were lucky. They met a man who showed them the Way. It wasn't random luck. And not only because the fatality of the cultural gap was deeply realized in society and the state made great efforts to eliminate it and heal the scars, creating conditions for the development of culture in general and religion in particular. They were ready to change the old stereotypes of thinking. Their personal will to self-improvement for the sake of gaining wholeness and self-reliance predetermined the meeting of these people with Wang Liping, the Eighteenth Patriarch of the Taoist School of the Dragon Gate of Complete Truth, who had just appeared on the cultural stage of China and is still little known. They came to his group to practice "qigong", but came out as new people. They left, but did not leave, because since then they have become ardent propagandists of Chinese traditional culture, one of the foundations of which is Taoism. By virtue of their capabilities, they are now helping Wang Liping in solving the task set before him by the patriarchs of the school of previous generations - to reveal to China and the world the treasures of Taoist culture.

Interest in Chinese treasures culture in the world is steadily growing. But the "treasures of culture" have the peculiarity that, even when put on public display, they do not cease to be "secret", to be a secret to which everyone who sees them must find (or maybe not find) his own key. Whether it is a masterpiece of painting, a dance or the flowing movement of Taijiquan, whether it is a melody, a book, a word, or the silence of meditation, all these are only signs of culture that will be revealed to you if they become a fact of your own inner life.

Treasures of culture can be acquired, collected, observed, studied, admired and enjoyed, they can be “possessed” in one form or another as things or knowledge. But although in life we ​​often talk about “mastering culture,” culture cannot be “possessed,” because it is not contained in things and knowledge, but “is” only in a living person, in the life of his spirit. You can only "be" cultural. Culture and man as a generic being are consubstantial. Each individual "appropriates" culture" as a truly human way of life, and each individual's culture is equal to his "mastery of being human."

In the book “The Asceticism of the Great Tao” we are talking about the self-improvement of a person in the “appropriation” by a person of his generic essence, which “appropriation” is meant, from my point of view, by the already popular Chinese word “Tao”, or “Way”. Its interest lies in the fact that the “Way” is told by the one whose “mastery of being a man” earned him the name of True Man before the authorities of the thousand-year Taoist tradition. The book talks a lot about the areas, stages, methods and techniques of human self-improvement, as they were seen and implemented in the Taoist tradition. Technique is given the greatest importance here, but the main thing is not in it, it is only “functional” (yun) and is used to advance a person to the fullness of the manifestation of human essence (ti).

Man as a generic being, according to the views of the Taoists, is similar to the Cosmos, it is a “monad of complete information” about the Cosmos as an ordered Universe. Different levels of the existence of the Cosmos have microanalogs in man, not in his one three-dimensional body, but in man as an integral living being, "microcosm". To become a "microcosm", to bring all manifestations of one's life into harmony with the Cosmos - this is what the asceticism of the Great Tao consists of. Before our eyes in the book this Path passes under under the guidance of the High Teachers of the Dragon Gate School of Complete Truth (Quanzhen Longmen pai), a simple boy, a resident of the city of Fushun, located in Northeast China, is our contemporary. The years of his cultivation of the Tao fell on the period of the "cultural revolution". He and his Masters had to go into hiding, and for many years they wandered in the wilderness of the mountains and forests of China. During his wanderings, the main part of his education was realized. Upon returning home, he, already a young man, became a factory worker. The Teachers did not allow him to hide in the mountains and live as a hermit, as they themselves lived and as their Teachers and the Teachers of their Teachers lived for a thousand years, the guardians of the tradition of Complete Truth. The treasures of Taoist culture have been passed down secretly for thousands of years, only from teacher to student. But the time has come to transfer them for the use of all people, the time of the "Expansion of the Path", the introduction to it not of units, but of millions. Wang Liping was entrusted with the mission of expanding the Tao, and therefore he had to live in the world, the life of ordinary people, among their daily worries, joys, sorrows, among all worldly fuss, while remaining a True Man and cultivating harmony around him. “The sage is dressed in rags, and holds jasper in his bosom,” said Lao Tzu. The time has come to show people the beauty of jasper, the great cosmic harmony. If it is permissible to apply a Buddhist term to an adherent of Taoism, Wang Liping should be called a "bodhisattva", a person who reached the Shore of Salvation, but did not set foot on it, but returned to those who remained on this shore to help them escape. In the Taoist tradition, he is called "the hermit in the world."

The authors of the book did not create a novel, not a story,