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Translator’s Introduction

This book is a translation of the authorized biography of Wang Liping, a living Taoist master, written by two of his longtime disciples. Wang Liping is an eighteenth-generation Transmitter of the Longmen or Dragon Gate branch of Taoism, which traces its spiritual lineage back over eight hundred years. In his childhood, Wang Liping was chosen for special training as a Transmitter by three elderly masters of Dragon Gate Taoism.

The practice of bringing up specially chosen individuals as holders and Transmitters of esoteric teachings is practiced by Tibetan Buddhists and Khajagan Sufis as well as Dragon Gate Taoists.

After being located by the elderly Dragon Gate masters, Wang Liping was subsequently educated and trained in Taoist practices for a period of fifteen years. Now he is himself a teacher. This is the story of his early life and esoteric training, based on his own recollections.

The Dragon Gate branch is a sect of the powerful Complete Reality school of Taoism, which integrated Buddhism and Confucianism into a comprehensive new form of Taoism. Complete Reality Taoism eventually spread all over China during the Middle Ages, and still continues in existence today. Numerous classics and texts of this school have been translated into English over the last ten years.

Complete Reality Taoism is generally divided into two main traditions, Southern and Northern. The somewhat older Southern tradition is rooted in the work of Zhang Boduan (Chang Po-tuan, 983–1082), whose masterpiece Understanding Reality is considered one of the classics of Taoist Spiritual alchemy and is also studied by Taoists of the Northern tradition. Another work on spiritual alchemy by this same master, Four Hundred Character Treatise on the Gold Elixir, is also widely esteemed and studied by Taoists of both Southern and Northern traditions.

The Northern tradition of Complete Reality Taoism is rooted in the work of Wang Chongyang (Wang Che, 1113–1171), particularly his Fifteen Statements on the Establishment of a Teaching. Wang is believed to have learned from Lu Dongbin (Lu Tung-pin n.d.), the great master known as Ancestor Lu. This Ancestor Lu is associated with the integration of Buddhism and Confucianism with ancient Taoism to produce the germ of the new spiritual alchemy of Complete Reality Taoism. Wang Chongyang is also believed to have studied from Lu’s own teacher; later he himself taught a number of famous figures in Taoist tradition.

English versions of works by and about Ancestor Lu, Wang Chongyang, Zhang Boduan, and other adepts of Complete Reality Taoism can be found in Understanding Reality; Inner Teachings of Taoism; Vitality, Energy and Spirit; The Spirit of the Tao; Immortal Sisters; The Book of Balance and Harmony, and The Secret of the Golden Flower.

The Dragon Gate sect of Taoism, of which Wang Liping is an heir, was an offshoot of the Northern tradition of the Complete Reality school. Its spiritual descent is traced to the thirteenth-century master Chang-chun, who was one of the great disciples of Wang Chongyang. Chang-chun, the Master of Eternal Spring, was one of the sages who advised Genghis Khan to preserve the ancient civilization of China after the Mongolian conquest, over eight hundred years ago. Genghis Khan appointed Chang-chun overseer of religions in China, and the Dragon Gate sect thus played a critical role in the conservation of Chinese culture.

Taoists attribute to Chang-chun the core of the work known as Journey to the West, a symbolic story encapsulating Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian teachings. Journey to the West was popularized in drama during the Yuan dynasty (1277–1367) and later elaborated during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) into one of the most famous and most popular novels of Chinese literature. Comments on the interior spiritual significance of Journey to the West, written by Liu I-ming, an eleventh-generation master of the Dragon Gate sect, can be found translated into English in Vitality, Energy, Spirit.

A living survivor of the tumultuous era of the Great Cultural Revolution, Wang Liping is reputed to be master of a very unusual range of knowledge and capacities. As a specially trained Transmitter, he continues the Dragon Gate tradition of maintaining and updating Taoist sciences. In addition to his teaching and healing activities and work on recompiling the Taoist canon, Wang Liping also serves as an advisor to numerous official committees devoted to research on Chinese medicine, diet, and other elements of Chinese culture traditionally subtended by Taoism. He is also a husband and father.

Over the ages, it has been customary for Taoists to design and employ different educational formats, in accordance with original principles of flexibility enunciated in the ancient classic Lao-tzu, or Tao Te Ching. For the purposes of modern projection of the Dragon Gate teaching, Master Wang Liping presents a new philosophical framework, referred to as the Triple World.

The first level of the triple world consists of three realms; people, events, and things. This is the level of experience that has both form and substance, that which is accessible to ordinary human senses and the scientific instruments that have been invented to extend and augment the range of these senses.

The middle level of the triple world consists of the three realms of heaven, earth, and humanity. This level of experience includes that which has form but no substance, and that which has substance but no form. This is already beyond the domain of ordinary understanding. That which has form but no substance is like dreams; that which has substance but no form is called vitality, energy, and spirit.

The highest level of the triple world consists of the three realms of the universe, time, and space. These terms, as used here in the Taoist context, do not have exactly the same meanings as ordinarily understood. Said to be the domain of that which has neither form nor substance, the upper three realms, as experienced through Taoist practice, are found to be even vaster and richer than what are ordinarily experienced by the senses as the universe, time, and space. This is the realm of the Tao.

As is the case with all working Taoist frameworks, this philosophical system is not for the purpose of doctrinaire conditioning or abstract conceptualization, but rather is designed as an expedient means of structuring knowledge, practice, and experience. Special cultivation of the faculties is necessary even to perceive what is beyond ordinary conception; so orientation requires some way of hinting at what cannot be exactly described.

As will be seen in this book, describing outstanding events in the course of Master Wang Liping’s training, each level of the system corresponds to certain Taoist exercises, levels of perception, and modes of self-cultivation. Thus the system leads the mind from the realm of the known into the realm of the unknown, by development and refinement of capacities that ordinarily lie dormant in the uncultivated state.

This book illustrates something of the possibilities of Taoism hinted at in the classics, through the remarkable story of a modern wizard of the tradition. Along the way, the book describes conditions in China past and present, outstanding personalities of yesteryear, principles and practices of Taoist immortals, the origins of the Dragon Gate teachings, and new visions of human potential and the possibilities of the future.