Are young intellectuals 'possessed'?

I couldn't resist this article from The China Post by a guy named Joe Hung.  Is it possible (with a name like that) Mr. Hung is in the wrong profession? (I think I would go with the pinyin spelling: Heng.)

Anyway, he seems to have a fantasy vision of a historical China where people were rational and mental problems didn't exist. Well, it's kind of true, nobody called them mental problems. They called them "Shen Disturbances." No society of humans has ever been rational. Most of us have moments of rational thinking.  People have built Lunar-Landers facilitated by institutions like NASA dedicated to rational thinking. But has anyone met a fully rational human being? (I'm thinking right now about a certain female astronaut who recently wore diapers on a cross-country drive.)

That's why I was shocked to learn that in Taiwan at least one out of every four university students, or young intellectuals who should belong to the class of literati in imperial China, is "depressed enough to benefit from assistance" of one kind or the other. That information was found, among other things, by a John Tung Foundation survey conducted between last May and June. An even more shocking finding was that the kinds of assistance these depressed young intellectuals are seeking include "divination" and "exorcism."

The survey shows at least 1.8 percent and a slightly lower 1.7 percent of the 6,960 respondents rely on divination and exorcism, respectively, for help in dealing with depression. Those who wish to seek counseling from school counselors account for a mere 2.3 percent, much fewer than another 3.3 percent of the students chanting sutras and/or praying for divine help. Still another 2.8 percent believe their folklore religion -- animism, or more often than not, outright superstition -- can cure their depression. Altogether, 11.9 percent of Taiwan's young intellectuals want supernatural powers to get rid of their psychiatric disorder.

Mr. Hung seems quite convinced that exorcism doesn't work, while I'm pretty sure therapy doesn't work either. Actually talisman, divination, drugs, exorcism, therapy--it all works sometimes--it can work when people actually make and follow through on new commitments. But don't be surprised to find humans dedicated to something irrational. The only people who could be surprised by that are people who aren't paying attention.

Bowing

There is a Daoist precept against subordination. In fact there is a precept (one of the 180 of Lord Lao) that says, "Do not serve in the military. If you must serve in the military do not serve in a subordinate position." I take this to mean join as an officer and be in a position to make decisions about life and death.

I think people living as we do in a commercial society find the idea of not being subordinate both appealing and at times unworkable.

(Currently I feel subordinate to my web hosting service and my ISP which are never able to solve all the weird intermittent and indeterminate problems I have in my daily struggle/walk-in-the-sun to publish my blog. 2 hours on the phone, zero results. If you occasionally get a “Yahoo 404 Error� or a "500 error" when you try to read my blog, I’d love to hear from you.)

What is the purpose of bowing? A traditional class has at least three bows. The first bow is done upon entering the space. Why bow to the space? This tradition comes out of the shamanic practice of subordinating oneself to allies (gods, spirits, ancestors) in exchange for power. The power one gets through subordination is then used to exorcise, scare away, or subordinate all other beings in a given space. It is often called "purification." (Today at the farmer’s market I watched a large man attempt a rather weak version of purification while swinging a bible and shouting in a horse voice about revelation.)



The Japanese term Dojo means Hall of the Dao. It most likely comes from Sung Dynasty (900-1200 CE) Daoism. Clan halls, trade halls, and halls associated with the mega-deity-category "Earth," were used as community centers, places for everything (Dao). When you entered one of these halls to practice gongfu (meritorious martial training) it was important to clear the space of spirits that might try to possess you--dangerous spirits are particularly attracted to weapons and those who wield them.

When a shaman purifies a space, she uses her acquired strength to forcibly evict all the ghosts and spirits that have taken up residence there. Since Daoists did not practice subordination to other entities and they were weak by precept and commitment, they didn’t actually purify the space immediately. Instead they bowed. The act of bowing is a declaration that human beings are going to temporarily use the space for meritorious actions. Bowing doesn’t scare away ghosts, or banish them. Bowing is a way of asking spirits to temporarily clear out. It is a declaration that the practice about to be performed will not be of any interest to ghosts. A ghost is an entity defined by weak, deficient, or lingering commitments.

The second bow is usually to the teacher. The teacher joins this bow because the bow is not to the person but to the teaching itself. It is as if all the teacher’s teachers are standing behind him and he ducks so that the bow of the students will fly over his head to be received by all of the ancestors of the teaching itself.

(In many schools, before and after working with a partner people will bow to each other as equals. This bow again represents a declaration to practice only acts of merit.)

The third bow is to give up the space to who ever or what ever is going to use it next. It cautiously invites the spirits back. After doing this ritual in a space for several years the spirits attracted to dangerous behavior or people with weak commitments will have had time to find another place and will have moved on. Through this continual demonstration of acts of merit (gongfu) some spirits will have found the strength to complete themselves and become one with Dao. Thus we call this place a Dojo, a hall of the Dao.

Zhang Daoling

This is a continuation of my series answering basic questions about Daoism.

Who Was Zhang Daoling?
Zhang Daoling is the founder of Religious Daoism (Daojiao), the Celestial Masters (Tianshidao) and Orthrodox Daoism (Zhengyidao). All Daoist lineages trace their inspiration back to him. He was born in Eastern China and as a child studied with five fangshi, which was a general term used for shaman-doctors. These fangshi were probably experts in ritual, healing, and trance. Still in his youth, Zhang traveled to Western China, to the area we know as Sichuan. There he went into solo retreat in a cave on Heron Call Mountain (Hemingshan).

The revelations of Lao Jun
When Zhang Daoling came out of retreat in 142 CE he began teaching publicly and healing the sick. He said that he had met Lao Jun (Lord Lao), the source and the original inspiration for the Daodejing. His teaching centered on the meaning of the Daodejing, the text was read aloud so that even the illiterate could memorize it.

True for all time and in all eras
Zhang taught that Lao Jun’s revelations had appeared to humans many times throughout history, transmitted through ‘seed people,’ such as himself and Laozi the original author/compiler of the Daodejing. Zhang taught that the Daodejing was the perfect expression of Lao Jun for the time it was written; however, the text was by Zhang’s time nearly 500 years old and the original inspiration had become occluded. Thus he was inspired to reveal its true meaning through his teachings and commentaries. He further taught that new expressions of this essential teaching would continue to appear in each era because these revelations are both true and always available. The characteristics of each era are different and so the same essential teaching may manifest in different ways at different times.

Healing by Commitment
Zhang performed healing ceremonies in which part of the healing process was a commitment on the part of the person being healed to change their behavior. He began the method of making written talismanic contracts called fu, which were burned, put in water, or buried in the earth as a way to reify peoples new commitments. This brought about healing among his followers. Some of the talismanic style of writing he produced is still copied and used today.

A Daoist Country
Zhang Daoling’s following grew steadily and his teachings were carried on by his descendants. By the time of his grandson Zhang Lu, the Celestial Masters had founded a small country. Each family contributed five pecks (a bushel) of rice, and thus for a time early Daoism was called the Five Pecks of Rice school. Zhang Daoling is still represented in ritual as a bowl of rice with the tip of a sword stuck straight down into it.

The country they founded was approximately 40 miles across, was multi-ethnic, and from what we know it was administered very successfully from 190 until 215 CE. When the general Cao Cao swept across China with a huge army, Zhang Lu personally rode out to meet him and the two forged an agreement. The Wei Dynasty which Cao Cao founded was short lived (215-266) but his agreement with Zhang Lu allowed Daoist priests to be spread throughout every part China.

Sacred Texts
Zhang Daoling and Zhang Lu both wrote commentaries on the Daodejing which are still read today (though parts of each have been lost). Zhang Lu is the author of several of Daoism’s founding texts, including the Xiang’er Precepts and The Commandments and Admonitions for the Families of the Great Dao.

Zhang Daoling, his sons, his grandsons and all of their wives reach the highest level of xian known as "rising up in broad daylight with one’s dogs and chickens!" (Xian is usually translated ‘immortality’ or ‘transcendence’.)

Conference on Daoism

On Saturday I made it to the last session of this conference on Quanzhen Daoism, which was exciting. Unfortunately I didn't get any of the papers in advance so I'm just reading them now.

David A. Palmer and an old friend of mine Elijah Siegler are collaborating on an interesting project investigating the relationship between Daoism in America and Daoism in China. Unfortunately the paper is in draft form with a request not to cite or circulate, so I'm not going to talk about it, but it seems like a good time to link to my own "American Daoist, Tours China" article. This is really just a bunch of emails I sent out to friends in 2001 before I had even heard the word "blog" but if you can stomach the jarring transitions and feeble use of paragraphs, I do explore some of the same questions these scholars are asking.

David A. Palmer has a book I'm dying to read and review, but If you want to pick it up before I review it, here it is: Qigong Fever.

I met Terry Kleeman whose book Great Perfecton deals with the multi-ethnic origins of Daoism. It is a difficult read, but if juicy footnotes make you hot, you'll love it.

I also talked with Paul R. Katz whose book Images of the Immortal deals with Lu Dongbin and the founding of Quanzhen Daoism. When I read this book my particular interest was in his thorough exploration of the on-again off-again relationship of Quanzhen (Perfect Realization) to Zhengyi (Orthodox Daoism).

Professor Katz immediately picked up on my interest in the links between martial arts and ritual performance, exorcism and social organization. He recommend three books, so I have some serious reading to do. He also has a new book out called When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial Taiwan.

Lastly I've gotten some requests for references backing up my claims about rhythm and music in my videos African Bagua and African Bagua 2. So I plan to write a few blogs on Daoism Martial Arts and Music. Let me just say up front that I stand by the claims I make, but if you want to understand why I make the claims I do, the place to start is reading all the major writers of the 100 Schools who wrote on music during the Warring States Era (400-200 BCE), starting with Xunzi, Mozi, and Hanfeizi.  Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius and Mencius also all comment on music and its place in society.  There isn't one book to read.  The major writers on Daoist ritual all have chapters on music.  As someone who came to Daoism and Martial arts with a dancer's ear, I've listened for references to music all along and slowly put together my ideas.

Flexibility

Practicing flexibility is a Daoist Precept. Still, I'm kind of down on yoga. To me, true physical flexibility is the range of motion that you can use to express an emotion, a feeling, or a task. The feeling most people express when they are doing yoga is pain. (I know, it feels soooo good afterwards.)

Let me be the first to admit that if you are already in pain, stretching may be the simplest and most straightforward way to temporarily get rid of it. Fair enough. But until you change the regular activity (or inactivity) which is causing the pain, the pain will keep returning.

Dance is generally a good way to develop flexibility. Unfortunately the standards of ballet and most modern dance are based on teenage bodies, which are far more pliant than adult bodies. Thus injuries are too common. But there are many different types of dance.

I know most martial artists are afraid of dance, but incidentally I was at a serious Kick-boxing gym last night where fighters were jumping rope and doing endurance training. I'm willing to bet that any professional ballet dancer can beat these fighters in an endurance match.

I suspect that most people will not understand what I am saying because they don't have the experience. Let me put it another way. If it hurts, it is wrong. If it disconnects the limbs from the movement of the torso, it is wrong.

If Elvis were alive today he would have put it this way: If your "downward dog" can't chase rabbits (or at least scamper around the kitchen), he ain't no friend of mine.

I know that was some tough talk, but if you still love stretching (think pain), contortion is a great option! San Francisco now has a world class contortion training program, The Circus Center.  Make sure you scroll down to the middle of the Adult classes part of the schedule where it says Advanced Contortion and Mongolian Contortion. This is the real deal!

(Also, yesterday I attended a fabulous show at The Circus Center's Clown Conservatory, for those of you into the high art of clowning!)

Ghosts, Demons and Immortals

I hope you all had a lovely Halloween, hah, hah, haaa!

There are five basic types of human death; either we become a god, a ghost, a demon, an immortal, or a supportive ancestor.

Most people die and are forgotten, even their descendants forget them in a generation or so. Most people are mostly forgotten in seven years. People who die young, or die with a lot of unfulfilled potential may linger a bit longer. People who lived long fulfilling lives are generally remembered by their descendants simply as supportive ancestors, the more time that passes, the more generally we feel their support. I don't know how my deceased grandparents would feel about me writing a blog, they didn't live to see the internet, but they loved books and innovation, so I feel fairly sure that they would be regular readers if they were still alive.

But it is also safe to say that my grandparents are not completely resolved. I still wonder what they would think, and thus they live on through me and the many other people that knew them.

All ghosts, gods, demons, and supportive ancestors eventually become immortals--they become one with Dao-- they become undifferentiated from the totality of everything known and unknown. The Hindu God Shiva is one of the oldest gods, but eventually he too will be forgotten.

As you may have gathered, Daoism has a vast cosmology which is capable of incorporating new material, new world views, and also subsuming older cults, and mythologies. One of the "cults within the cult" is the quest for Immortality, called Xian in Chinese.

The cult of Xian is extremely diverse. While there are some general suggestions about how to go about becoming a Xian, even manuals and programs to follow, there really is no method that works every time. Even though there are routes by which one may become a xian, like "Rising up in broad daylight with one's dogs and chickens," every process of becoming Xian is truly unique for that person, time and place.

One thing I can say however, is that to become a xian, one must leave behind no unresolved entanglements, no lingering or unfulfilled commitments. An Immortal in that sense is the opposite of a ghost.

Going a little deeper into the subject, it is possible to be still alive and to have begun taking on a ghostly presence. Poor diet, drugs and aggressive behavior, all lead to what we call in Chinese Medicine, "deficiency." Deficiency, as a key concept in Chinese Medicine, takes many different forms, for instance it effects each organ differently and may only be noticed in one organ. From a Daoist point of view, "deficiency" is a draw for ghosts to feed and eventually take up residence in one's body. Ghosts if you remember, are weak commitments; commitments too "deficient" to follow through.

Thus we have one of the most basic connections between Chinese Medicine and Daoism. But don't think I'm letting you gongfu people off the hook. Gongfu, at its most basic level, is about establishing strong commitments. In Chinese Medicine the most potent way to "tonify" (the opposite of deficiency) the spleen and kidneys is through routine exercise. Health in this sense, completes the incomplete, it transforms ghosts into immortals.

Ghosts and Demons!

As I said yesterday, perhaps our most defining characteristic as human beings is our ability to make commitments. But such an observation brings with it the reality that we can make commitments to things which are not real, or not true. At one extreme we can make vague wishy-washy commitments, and at the other extreme we can swear an oath in blood to repeat and maintain a lie.

Enter Yin Spirits.

A clear strong commitment can't be made when a previous commitment is in conflict with it. If the previous and now conflicting commitment is vague, irrational, or desperate, Daoists would call it a ghostly commitment. Lingering ghostly commitments tend to dilute new commitments and thus create more ghostly commitments over time.

Where do weak commitments come from in the first place? What is a ghost or a demon? To answer those two questions I'm going to have to ask another question first.
What happens when we die? From a Daoist point of view there are five possibilities; we become a god, a ghost, a demon, an immortal, or a supportive ancestor.

At the moment of death everything which is subtle and light rises upward to join with heaven; and everything gross, heavy and thick sinks downward and becomes one with earth. The only problem is that this de-polarization can take a while to complete. The stuff that makes us what we are does not disperse immediately.

Usually when a person dies they still have a few things they wish to do, they still have a desire that is unfulfilled, or a fear that lingers. Most of these wishes quickly fade as the person dies, but not all.

A desire like, "I want to sit in my favorite chair and look out the window," would likely fade fast after death. But we've all heard the story of the unfulfilled woman who sat waiting at the window for a lover to come, only to hear a false report that something terrible has befallen her man. The woman commits suicide just at the moment her lover returns! What is left is the type of feeling that can hang around for a while after death. We don't know why this happens, but we do know that the intense feeling and lingering commitments tend to be carried forward through those who were emotionally close to the person who died.

A vow like, "I want my sons and daughters to avenge my murder," has a good chance of continuing on in some form through the living. This is true even if the sons and daughters realize that vengeance is a mistake and choose not to seek it. The fact that a parent died with such a potent unresolved will has a real effect on the children. It has the potential to interfere with their ability's to make strong clear commitments.

A behavior like a craving for a cigarette usually fades shortly after death, but in some circumstances it will be carried forward by ones descendants. This is especially true for those quirky behaviors we inherit from our families which have vague or unknown origins.

When parents experience extreme trauma it is not unusual for them to keep the details of that trauma hidden from their children but to pass on quirky or frightened behavior with out explanation. For example, the child of a Holocaust surviver who acts overly cautious about food, as if he were afraid of being poisoned, but he isn't actually afraid of that.

The Daoist definition of a ghost is a weak nagging commitment. A commitment which doesn't have enough qi to complete itself. Gods and Demons are not so different from each other. A god lower down in the Heavenly Hierarchy tends to get his start as a human who decides to keep his commitment even though he knows it will kill him.

Demon births tend to start with humans who have made very strong commitments to fantasies which spread terror and lies. After such a person dies, people who have inherited weak commitments sometimes make offerings to such a person. They collect amulets and symbols of the dead man's life and thus magnify the will of the dead over time. Hitler is a good example of a demon who lingers on through the weak commitments of the living.

It matters not at all whether you or I believe in ghosts or demons, they are real!

What Do Daoists Believe?

This is part of a series of posts I'm doing on Daoism. I put the first post on its own page (see side bar). As I create more material about Daoism, that page will become a summary with links for all the major posts on Daoism.

When English speaking people first hear that Daoism is a religion, they want to know what the basic tenants of the faith are. They ask, "What do Daoists believe?"

Immediately we have a problem: The standard definition of religion, "A set of Beliefs," doesn’t apply well to Daoism or for that matter any religion which does not encourage conversion and does not proselytize.

A Way of Life
Daoism is not well defined by asking the questions, "What are it’s basic tenants? What are it’s beliefs? " Daoism is a tradition with sacred scriptures, rituals, precepts, a pantheon of gods and demons, and sacred places that inspire great devotion. Daoism has ancient training centers for the study and performance of secret and public ritual. It also has monasteries where people dedicated to meditation and other forms of inner cultivation go to live communally. There are also family lineages, some of which are secret. Daoism’s ever changing tradition stretches back into history, at least to the first century CE, but Daoist’s say their way of life has always been an option, and always will be, though in different eras and different lands it may take many different forms.

Contracts & Commitments
Daoism’s definition of religion emerges from asking the question, "What is a human being?" The simple answer is, we haven’t found the limits of humanness yet. But one thing that is clearly true of all humans is that we make contracts. We make agreements about who we are responsible for, and what our duties are. We make agreements about what a word means, and what is a good place to sleep. We vow allegiance to the righteous, and pledge vengeance upon our foes. A significant part of what constitutes our life as humans is defined by our commitments. Whether they are big or small, subtle or obvious, weak or strong, fleeting or pervasive, our commitments make us what we are.

Cosmology
Daoists take this formula about what defines our humanness to the cosmic level. A human is a temporal agreement between everything in us which is subtle and rises, a category we call Heaven(Tian), and everything in us which is solid and sinks, a category which we call Earth (di). A human being is a contract between Heaven and Earth to stay together, in a polarized state, for however long a person lives. When we die, hopefully the contract ends. However sometimes when a person dies, the duties, contracts, vows, and commitments they have made during their lives linger on even after they have given up their bodies. A simple and common example of this is that when a parent dies, the children often still feel the expectations of the parent for years, sometimes even for the rest of their lives. Our final will or intentions can live on for a time after our death.

One of the most popular expressions of Daoism is the making of talisman. These usually take the form of pieces of paper with words and symbols written on them, but can also be cast in bronze, written in the air, printed on food, or worn as clothing. The word talisman in Chinese is Fu, which literally means a contract. One of the oldest forms of Daoist Healing is the making of contracts which clarify the relationship between the seen and the unseen worlds. These Fu are usually between men and the invisible worlds of gods, ghosts, and demons.

Becoming an Immortal
The ultimate goal of a great many Daoist practices, precepts and rituals is to see to it that commitments resolve easily. Or stated in a more personal way, we seek to live in such a way that the unresolved desires and pledges we have made during our lives do not linger on and torment the living after we have died. This concept is key to understanding Daoist concepts of freedom and fate. This is sometimes understood as the process of becoming a Daoist Immortal (Xian); it has innumerable forms and unlimited possible expressions. It is very hard to define.

Orthodox Covenant
That being said, there is also a Daoist orthodoxy. It is what one might call a collection of ‘best practices studies’--suggestions for how to cultivate Dao. This orthodoxy traces itself back to the founder of religious Daoism, the immortal Zhang Daoling who lived in first century of the Common Era. He was the first Daoist Priest, or Daoshi meaning an Official of the Dao. He is the founder of the Orthodox Covenant of the True Way (Zhengyidao), which later became known as Celestial Masters Daoism (Tianshidao).

Rabbit Love

Chinese popular religion is pretty dynamic. This article talks about how a local cult to the Rabbit God got started and how it is serving a local population.
The guy in the picture is a Fashi, a master of methods. He is not a Daoshi (Daoist priest), but as the creator of this temple/shrine he is in charge of managing the offings people make, the amulets people take away, and the way in which the Rabbit God is addressed.

Daoist priests are also called Tianshi (Celestial Masters) because they are responsible for determining, managing and updating the hierarchy of gods. The Rabbit god falls under the control of the City God. The shrine to the City God was likely the focal point of martial arts training during the Song Dynasty, and is the context from which the word gongfu (Kungfu) got its meaning. Gongfu means "meritorious action," people training martial arts on behalf of the community did so as part of their participation in the cult of the City God.

Zhenwu, the Icon (or god) we talked about yesterday is currently (since about 1650) the center of the Chinese hierarchy of gods. Before that it was the Jade Emperor (he is now retired). All gods deal with questions of fate and freedom. Daoist morality is not concerned with stopping behavior, it is concerned with finding one's place. Gods have a place, Demons have a place, even Starbuck's has a place.

Meditation Muscle

In an earlier post I talked about the invocation of Zhenwu (The Perfected Warrior) as a preliminary stage of all meditation. In the secular world, which includes Zen, Yiquan, and Vipasina among others, the invocation of of the Perfected Warrior becomes just "the discipline to be still."

Particularly in the Soto School of Zen (Chan) the posture itself is the central teaching, the method and the fruition. Zen has the Zhenwu preliminary stage, it just isn't given any attention in the teaching, except to say, "sit still."

In Yiquan, Zhenwu becomes a barely active body. Thus students are instructed to wrap their arms around an imaginary tree and try to move it. This constant vigilance could also be called "stillness ready to pounce."

While it is entirely possible to just start practicing meditation with no instruction save a posture; meditation does require a certain kind of strength. Let's call it meditation muscle.  Generally the Zen tradition helps people build this meditation muscle by having new students join a daily group of people who have already established a committed practice.

Willing oneself to "be still" by constantly resisting the urge to move has the same effect as the Yiquan approach of "stillness ready to pounce." Both approaches develop this meditation muscle. They are both pulling on the same "rope."

Since we are not actually Zhenwu (a permanently meditating war god ready at any moment to leap up and charge off into battle), all these methods give-in to something softer and weaker, they reveal our true nature--they are non-productive.