My Thesis.

My Thesis:

Until recently it never . to me to explain what I'm doing and why, so today I'd like to give some insight into the basic premise of the Immortality Study Newsletter, my approach to Daoist Internal Alchemy, and why a Chen Yingning revival movement should be a thing, so here goes.

I began studying Internal Alchemy in 2011 under the guidance of my teacher Yang Hai.

Before that in 2010, after years of pestering him he finally agreed to teach me a little bit about Daoism.

It started with a historical overview of the main concepts in characters in the Daoist world from Laozi, to the Heavenly Masters, all the way through the foundation of Quanzhen, and into the modern era.

I remember at the time that he mentioned Chen Yingning as a great sage of the twentieth century who saved Daoism during a time of extreme difficulty and how Chen founded an entirely new branch of Daoist studies called Xian Xue (Immortality Study), a combination of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and elements of other religions and philosophies that was directed toward personal self cultivation to attain realization.

Since then I've always been interested in this important person and his contribution to Daoism which is relatively unknown in the West and intentionally downplayed in China for internal political reasons.

To put Chen's work very simply, he was the first person to create a discrete distinction between Daoist practice and the Daoist religion and he can be seen as the founder of secular Daoism.

Secular Daoism does not mean atheistic, or non spiritual Daoism, but was instead based on the idea that people can attain realization entirely based on their own efforts and that meditation, philosophy, and self cultivation are tools which enable this possibility.

Historically in the Daoist world there are many figures who were arguably more secular than religious and the late Qing Dynasty Neidan master and Daoist philosopher Li Hanxu immediately springs to mind, but Chen was the first person to actually generate the distinction which ultimately separated practice of meditation from ritual, liturgy, and the other arts of religion.

Chen was most definitely not against the idea of spirits beyond the human realm and in his early middle ages was deeply involved in Spirit Writing among other activities, but he felt that a practical distinction had to be made in order to help the people of China make meaningful progress in self cultivation as a means by which to strengthen the nation during a time of crisis (this period was at the tail end of the so called “Hundred years of shame” in which China was invaded by multiple foreign powers and treated unfairly).

One of the most important things Chen Yingning did during his time researching and promoting Daoism was to read the entire Daoist Canon, a collection of more than 5000 texts.

He did this over the course of three years at the Shanghai White Cloud Temple, a place you can still visit today near Shanghai's famed Yu Gardens.

Chen also helped to found the China Daoist Research Association in Beijing (located next to the Beijing White Cloud Temple) and he and his disciple Hu Haiya served as Vice President and President respectively for many years.

Although Chen had nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies, his addition to the intellectual heritage of Daoism cannot be understated.

Because it is very difficult to have a nuanced conversation about Chen's views on religion, it has often been the case as of late that people of the Daoist religious persuasion in China have unfriendly and even hostile views of Chen.

The criticism goes that because Chen Yingning criticized some of the behaviors of the religious Daoists of his era he was acting in a contentious way which thus excluded him from the realm of the Immortals.

Of course if we are going to take such a position we must also say that Zhang Boduan, Li Daochun, and even Wang Chongyang would also be excluded, since each of them had many negative things to say about negative happenings in the Daoist world of their time.

In point of fact, the critical tradition is a historical legacy of Neidan culture and most of the most prominent Neidan masters left behind iconoclastic diatribes in the texts they passed down to their disciples.

Criticisms aside, the area where I am particularly interested in Chen's work is not his views on religion, since as a Westerner my only ability to understand the Daoist religion is through the lens of an interested outsider. I prefer to view religious ideas as metaphorical and maybe even archetypal in nature and see the deities as being essential representations of real phenomena in the universe which are embodied through the mental power of religious practitioners.

My reasoning goes that if a practitioner is completely sincere in their religious activity, the deity is embodied in their practice and thus the deity is real insofar as the practice of that person and their community is concerned.

Where I think Chen is important is in “Pan-Neidan” view of Daoist Meditation.

Chen Yingning did the most work of any person in history to understand the theories of Internal Alchemy and their practices from the perspective of each of the major schools of thought of the genre.

His work is why it is possible to clearly differentiate the Northern, Southern, Middle, Eastern, Western, Sanfeng, and Wu Liu schools, since he explained in detail how their theories work and further categorized them into the models of the Yin Xian and Shao Yang schools as well as the San Yuan model of Alchemical methods.

The San Yuan were originally posited by Lu Xixing during the Ming Dynasty, and elaborated on by Liu Huayang, but it was Chen who ultimately did the most research on the relationship between External Alchemy (Earth Method), Internal Alchemy (Human Method), and Pure Meditation (Heavenly Method).

Most of the work of modern scholars such as Hu Fuchen (the current most respected Neidan scholar in China) stems from Chen's academic and practical contributions to the genre.

Furthermore Chen Yingning went very far in Internal Alchemy practice and was able to leave behind information about his experience that helped pave the way for our current understanding of the development of practice over many years.

So... my thesis...

You might say, “but Robert, you said you were going to tell us what you are up to and then you just wrote about this master you really like, what's the deal,” to which I would reply that in order for me to explain what I'm doing it is needed to first explain the background of what I'm doing.

In my opinion Chen Yingning not only created a completely distinct approach to Daosit Inner Cultivation, he also laid down a unique framework for researching Inner Alchemy which should be the standard by which the genre is viewed today.

This method of research first understands each historical method as a discrete school of thought not connected by lineage, but instead by commonalities of practice.

This means that the idea that the Northern School is mainly focused on revelation of Nature while the Southern School is mainly focused on revelation of Life is a description of approaches to practice rather than distinct lineages with unbroken lines of masters throughout history as is the case with religious schools such as Quanzhen.

To understand in a clear headed what the assumptions and arguments of each school is to come to realize:

• What is the nature of Neidan,

• Why there are three major approaches,

• How they are practiced,

• Who each approach is appropriate for,

• If it is possible to change approaches over time to suit your own practice,

• and most importantly that Neidan is a consistent theoretical model of Meditation which differs from other Daoist methods such as Tu Na, Visualization, Qigong, Sexual practice etc...

We can also know that Neidan has its own specific canon of texts and which ones do not belong in the genre.

Furthermore, we can also understand the relationship of other Daoist self cultivation practices to Neidan and develop a rich practice where each method and approach is used in its proper way, rather than the mixing and matching buffet model so commonly seen in Daoist society in the West.

To me, my greatest goal in the promotion of Neidan is to help clarify what the actual categories of practice are, how people thought about them in the past, and how we can cultivate them today in an effective way that produces real results and not just hyperbolic verbal masturbation.

Although I always aspire to be a very nice man, I am definitely part of the critical vanguard of Internal Alchemy and I definitely disagree with all of the Side Door Tricksters, Used Car Salesmen, and Andrew Tate wannabe's of the Daoist Self Cultivation World in the West.

I practice Neidan for many hours every single day and I also read and translate old documents every day. I still talk to my teacher frequently about meditation and I aspire to go as far as I possibly can with it, never stopping even if I don't reach the end destination.

I also deeply wish to share the almost totally overlooked contemporary view of Neidan espoused by secular practitioners and scholars today in China, Taiwan and other parts of the Chinese speaking world.

I don't completely agree with the teachings of Chen Yingning's descendants in Taiwan, but I think that an approach to Neidan which is good for many people, rather than a select few religious people is one step closer to the goal of helping all sentient beings, so I am very supportive of any approach to disseminating good and practical information about the practice.

At the same time, I love and admire religious Daoism and view it as the backbone which allowed Daoist knowledge to exist until the modern era.

Without the collection of a Daoist Canon and without the transmission of the Clergy it would have been totally impossible for this wonderful tradition to exist into today's world.

Thus I am in agreement with my religious friends who believe that the Dao, The Scriptures and the Teachers are Three Treasures which must be cherished and held close.

The Immortality Study Newsletter, the material I teach, and our extended community of Daoist friends are all part of a wind of reform coming to Western Daoism which I believe will have a positive effect in the future, and is having a positive effect today to lead people toward authentic study and practice.