The Mad Monk Manifesto. Yun Rou

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СКАЧАТЬ and mind, the Daoist axiom that heightened consciousness and increased awareness depend upon a strong body makes perfect sense.

      The body may or may not be the temple of the soul, but we completely rely upon it either way. In the Daoist ideal, a healthy body is relaxed, soft, pliable, and yielding. Like a palm tree bending in a storm, our softness allows us to endure life’s harsh winds and strong storms. There are passages in Laozi’s Daodejing that exhort us not only to recover the simple innocence of childhood but also to find in adult life the physical suppleness we had as infants, when our limbs could be led, naturally and without training, into postures to rival any yogini’s. In contrast to a palm tree, an oak can grow a fine and showy canopy but, by virtue of being rigid, will snap when assailed by weather or even by climbing children.

      Once the body is relaxed, we can begin to rectify it. Rectification of the body means setting things straight by implementing new and positive changes. We fix our posture, straighten our spine, and treat physical inflammation or dysfunction primarily with diet and exercise. We integrate the body from hand to foot, meaning that any work done with our hands while standing is subtly felt in every part of the body, all the way to the feet. We gain that sensitivity through relaxation, meditation, and the cultivation of simple habits, like moving back as far as possible in our chair while sitting, so as to work the abdominal muscles that give us the strength to maintain this position.

      Our next step is to rectify the mind. This means inspecting our habits, our preconceptions, tendencies, foibles, beliefs, and whatever limitations we unnecessarily accept. By carefully considering so much of what we all take for granted, we move off the stultifying platform of certainty and comfort and into the realm of healthy questioning and unease. This is a healthy place, despite the challenges, and good prescriptions naturally arise from dwelling in it.

      The magnificent Daoist sage, Zhuangzi, is generally believed to have lived during the fourth century BC. His short stories, together comprising one of the earliest works of Asian literature, are well known to every Chinese schoolchild. In one of the most famous passages of Eastern philosophy, he meets a friend at an inn for tea and recounts a dream in which he was a butterfly zooming across the landscape, flapping his beautiful wings and enjoying the power, freedom, and perspective of flight. He tells his friend he isn’t entirely sure whether he is a man who has just dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who is now dreaming he is a man.

      This preoccupation with identity—the nature of individual existence and the rectification of the self—is a hallmark of Daoism. Indeed, the great preponderance of Daoist practice is focused on the self—not in a narcissistic way, but rather in pursuit of consciousness, service, and immortal Dao running through all that is. This practice is done primarily through physical and meditative exercises, which expand the mind, sharpen the senses, and increase longevity. There are also rituals, including chants, arcane sexual practices, and reading of the classics, all of which encourage the light of truth to enter even the darkest corners of the mind.

      I knew quite a few exercises but not so many rituals, at least until the day I became a monk. On that day, South China steamed. The temple, once a rural property but now lodged squarely in the middle of the huge city’s garment district, was such a walled-in hotbox that even the trees begged for a breeze. The day-long ordination ritual began in the relative cool of morning but, as the day progressed, the wooden beams in the high-ceiling temple chambers in which we chanted, bowed, prayed, and rang bells began to sweat.

      Unlike many ancient systems of thought, which have remained fixed inside static, “primitive” societies, Daoism has grown and deepened over time, gaining sophistication and texture alongside the culture that spawned it. This means adopting and integrating ideas from other traditions as needed. In the glaring eyes of hundreds of deities set in alcoves around me, I saw evidence of Confucian ancestor worship and Buddhist beliefs in statues brightly painted in yellow, gold, blue, green, black, and red, and rendered in half-man-size, seemingly swollen with tears. In their midst were more than a few renderings of the Buddha himself and of his female counterpart Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy.

      Some water was available, but not more than a sip here or there. My fellow monks seemed less uncomfortable than I was, perhaps because they had long ago acclimated to wearing robes in the tropical heat. As the devotional ritual unfolded, they watched me, took care of me, led me from chamber to chamber and building to building. My command of Chinese was not nearly good enough to quickly and precisely read the characters before me, so I mostly mumbled and stumbled through hours of chants read from texts rendered in ancient, thick-paged books.

      The texts before me were specific to the somewhat newer branch of Daoism in which I was being ordained, which differed from the older branch I’d been raised on through Master Yan’s martial arts. My first and strongest loyalty was to Master Yan but I knew I was lucky to have Master Pan, and through him, a second lineage in which to study and to grow. Historically associated with poets, artists, merchants, and hermits, Daoism is also popular with China’s intellectual and power elite, and I’d seen such people floating in and out of Pan’s private office.

      Serene, sedate, rotund, and blessed with a breeze from the flat bamboo fans of acolytes attending him, long thick black hair tucked under his square, Daoist hat, Pan looked on. I worried I was disappointing him, but I needn’t have. When it was time to receive my certificate at the end of the day, I found myself bowing prostrated before him, hands and knees on a maroon pillow, thumbs hidden so as to evoke the yin/yang symbol known as the taijitu. When the signal came, I stood and bowed three times, paused, did the same again, paused, and did one last set of three, for a total of nine gestures of obeisance. Halfway through, despite downcast eyes, I caught a glimpse of Pan’s expression—an admixture of curiosity and affection, conveying without words the question, “Crazy foreigner, what are you doing here?”

      The last time, however, he gave me a smile I can only describe as beatific. I felt his positive energy, his encouragement and affection, as clearly as a laser beam from his eyes. Daoist masters have for millennia provided a wellspring of wisdom based on close study of nature and, in that capacity, have served as influential advisors to China’s rulers. I thought about the long road I’d taken, from a New York City apartment to this incense-filled Chinese temple. I bathed in the light of Pan’s approbation and felt a rise of satisfaction at having followed my path of self-cultivation to this memorable and marvelous time and place.

      Tuning in the World

      To really understand the flavor of classical Daoist wisdom, it’s best to open the mind by reading regularly from the Daoist canon. Some of the major works therein have been translated from their original Chinese. These include the divinatory, philosophical catalog of natural unfoldings, the Yijing, the famous Daodejing (The Classic of the Way and Virtue), the Zhuangzi (The Classic of Master Zhuang), Huangting Jing (The Classic of the Yellow Court), Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi (The Secret of the Golden Flower), the Qing Jingjing (The Classic of Purity and Stillness), and the Huainanzi (Master Huainan, a wise, encyclopedic collection of instructions for ruling a country that employs the very same root-and-branches structure as this manifesto). Daoist adherents find the principles and ideas in these books so compelling they adopt Daoist choices, priorities, diet, and values. Using intellection, meditation, and physical practice, they develop calm, clear minds and an abiding sense of the rationally unfathomable fabric of which our world is made. Why not take a stab at one and see what insights it reveals?

      …

      Airline safety announcements counsel us to put on our own oxygen mask before assisting others. The Daoist version of putting on the mask is the process of growing healthy, calm, and clear, balancing our urges so as to grow wise, realize our potential, and become a sage. A sage is a person who deeply senses the flow of the world and moves with it, not against it. Sages recognize the inherent wisdom of nature, the long-term genius of universal forces. We have gone beyond book-learning to a different kind of knowing. Quintessentially wise, we seem to do nothing, yet somehow get everything done. At any given moment, we may appear СКАЧАТЬ