Практика на самоусъвършенстване: Пътешествие на завръщане към нашия произход

Статията проследява дълбоката духовна традиция на Китай и развитието на практиките за самоусъвършенстване през хилядолетията, като показва как те оформят културата, морала и разбирането за човешкото съществуване. Авторът започва с древността, когато легендарният Жълт император – считан за основател на китайската цивилизация – търси пътя към Дао чрез ученията на мъдреца Гуанд Чънцзъ. Той научава, че истинското усъвършенстване започва с вътрешен покой, чистота и отказ от привързаности.

Следват ключови фигури като Лао Дзъ, чиято „Дао Дъ Дзин“ поставя основите на даоизма, и Конфуций, който оформя моралната структура на обществото. Паралелно с тях в Индия учи Сидхарта Гаутама (Сакямуни), а в Гърция – Сократ и Платон. Този период, известен като „Осовната епоха“, ражда основните духовни и философски системи на Изтока и Запада.

Статията разглежда и легендарни личности като Ге Хун от династия Дзин – майстор на алхимията, медицина и духовни практики. Той защитава идеята, че божествени същества съществуват, дори ако не могат да бъдат видени, и че пътят към безсмъртие е реален. Исторически хроники като „Лиесян Джуан“ и „Хоу Хан Шу“ документират десетки случаи на хора, постигнали свръхестествени способности.

Особено внимание е отделено на Джан Гуолао – един от Осемте безсмъртни – за когото има записи в официални исторически книги. Историите описват неговите способности да променя формата си, да лекува, да живее столетия и да демонстрира свръхестествени умения пред императори.

Кулминацията на статията е разказът за Сие Дзъжан – млада жена от династия Тан, която след години на усърдна духовна практика достига до състояние на пълно усъвършенстване и левитира пред хиляди свидетели през 794 г. Исторически документи, включително „Син Шу“ и местни хроники, описват събитието подробно.

Авторът подчертава, че подобни истории – както в Китай, така и в западната традиция (например св. Йосиф от Купертино) – показват, че човечеството винаги е търсило връзка с божественото. Те напомнят, че истинската цел на живота е духовното извисяване и завръщането към първоначалния ни произход.

Пълен текс:

Cultivation Practice: A Journey of Returning to Our Origin

Nov. 7, 2025 | By Wen Yiming

(Minghui.org) China is known as shenzhou (a divine land) for its long and rich spiritual history. But things have changed dramatically in the decades since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seized power in 1949.

During the infamous Cultural Revolution, countless temples, Taoist monasteries, churches, and historic sites were demolished. In recent years, some of the remaining cultural heritage sites have become tourist destinations to generate profit. These events have pushed the general public further and further away from traditional values.

We’d like to retrace China’s history and legacy, hoping to find new perspectives on mankind, our society, and more.

The Story Begins with the Yellow Emperor

The earliest documented spiritual path was that of the Yellow Emperor, 5,000 years ago. After hearing about Guang Chengzi, an ancient sage who practiced cultivation, the Yellow Empower visited him to ask about the essence of the Tao. “Do not pay attention to what you see or what you hear—just keep your soul calm,” advised Guang. “This way, your body will be rectified naturally toward serenity and purity. Without burdening your body and without consuming your essence, you will reach longevity.”

Enlightened by these words from Guang, the Yellow Emperor visited other sages and continued learning. After diligently cultivating, he finally reached consummation. He left behind the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor as the seminal work on Chinese medicine.

Another well-known sage was Laozi, who was generally considered the founder of Taoism. His classic text the Tao Te Ching has inspired and provided wisdom to people for generations. “Humans follow the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follow nature,” he wrote.

One should “abandon tactics and forsake material interest,” Laozi wrote. Over time, one would be able to “retain modesty” as well as “become less selfish and greedy.”

Laozi and Confucius lived in the same era, as did Sakyamuni in India. During this era between the 8th and the 3rd centuries BCE (referred to as the Axial Age by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers), Socrates and Plato were philosophers in ancient Greece. The sages Laozi, Confucious, and Sakyamuni developed the major cornerstones of Oriental culture—Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism—while Socrates and Plato added significantly to the progress of Western civilization.

From the Yellow Emperor to Laozi, the ideology of the Tao and Taoism became deeply embedded in Chinese culture. During the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was chosen as the authoritative doctrine and dominated the imperial examination thereafter. At the same time, Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty invited Buddhism to China, which further enriched Chinese civilization over the past 2,000 years.

The Legend of Ge Hong

Ge Hong, a legendary figure in the Jin Dynasty, not only succeeded in cultivation practice, but also mastered Chinese medicine and alchemy. His major writings included Baopuzi (a Taoist classic), Zhou Hou Jiu Zu Fang (a collection of prescriptions for Chinese medicines), and Legend of Immortals.

In Baopuzi, Ge admitted there were people who committed bad deeds in the name of Taoism. This caused confusion and discouraged those who were sincerely pursuing the Tao. However, he also pointed out that one should not be discouraged, because divine beings indeed existed and cultivating toward the divine was a practical path.

Some dismissed this, saying that divine beings didn’t exist since we couldn’t see them. Ge disagreed and wrote, “The heaven and earth are boundless, and the wonder is unlimited… Just because you do not see divine beings, you cannot say they are not there.”

In fact, there have been many records of divine beings. Historian Liu Xiang from the Han Dynasty documented over 70 divine beings in Liexian Zhuan (Biographies of Immortals). Liu was a serious scholar and his writings were credible.

The legends of immortals can be found in official histories, too. For example, Book of the Later Han included such stories, including one about Fei Changfang, whose master had extraordinary abilities. Another figure was Zhang Kai, who knew Chinese medicine well and was able to create fog that covered an area of several square miles.

The Legend of Zhang Guolao

Zhang Guolao, one of the Eight Immortals in Chinese history, was known for riding a donkey backwards. There are numerous legends about him, including several in two reputable history books, Old Book of Tang and New Book of Tang.

Empress Wu Zetian once summoned Zhang, who pretended to die in front of the envoy using his supernormal ability. It was summer, and his body quickly began to decompose and stink. Later, after hearing that Zhang was traveling in the area of Hengzhou, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang issued an invitation to him several times. When Zhang arrived, the emperor asked several diviners to tell his fate. But they were unable to figure it out.

Zhang said he was born in the era of Emperor Yao (about 2,300 BC), meaning he had lived for about 3,000 years. To test Zhang, the emperor gave him poisonous hemlock juice. Zhang drank three cups and fell asleep. When he woke up, all his teeth had decayed and turned black. Zhang used a metal tool to knock them out, then applied some medicine, and went back to sleep. When he woke up again, all his teeth had regenerated, as white and shiny as new. The emperor was impressed and honored him with a title.

Taiping Guangji recorded another story. The emperor went hunting, caught a deer, and told his chef to cook it. Zhang stopped him and said, “This is a celestial deer, and it’s over 1,000 years old.

“Five years after Emperor Wu of Han began his reign, I went hunting with him as an attendant. He caught this deer and then released it,” Zhang explained.

“There are so many deer here and so many years have passed. How do you know this is the same deer?” asked the emperor.

“Before Emperor Wu released the deer, he fastened a bronze plate to its left horn,” Zhang replied.

The emperor ordered someone to examine the deer, and, sure enough, they found a two-inch bronze plate with faded characters. When the emperor asked how old it was, Zhang said 852 years had passed.

When a historian was ordered to verify the calculation, he found Zhang was indeed correct: from 118 BC to 734 AD was 852 years. The emperor was even more amazed.

The Taoist Tradition: From the Han to the Tang Dynasty

The story of Zhang was one of many legends in which emperors took Taoism seriously, a tradition that can be traced to the Yellow Emperor (as described in Part 1 of this series).

Qin Shi Huang, founder of the Qin Dynasty, was China’s first emperor. He visited numerous places to worship divine beings, including Mount Tai. He also sent Xu Fu overseas to search for the elixir of life.

Emperor Wu of Han, one of history’s greatest emperors, also visited Mount Tai eight times to worship divine beings. He was said to have met the legendary Queen Mother of the West and was given advice about immortality.

Emperor Taizong of Tang was open-minded and acknowledged Confucianism, as well as Taoism and Buddhism. “What I like is basically the way of Emperors Yao and Shun, together with Confucian doctrine from the Zhou Dynasty,” he said.

He also promoted Taoism and Buddhism. “Laozi set a good example and his teachings focus on purity and emptiness; Buddhism left us doctrines on the relationship between cause and effect,” he explained. “Following these can help one reach a new realm; understanding them on a superficial level will help improve civilization.”

After Xuanzang returned from the West with the Buddhist scripture, Emperor Taizong arranged for him to translate 75 scriptures out of a total 1,335 volumes. The success and influence of these three belief systems was unprecedented.

During the time of Emperor Xuanzong in the Tang Dynasty, Taoism enjoyed another wave of popularity. In 721, Emperor Xuanzong became the first emperor recognized as a Taoist through an ordination ceremony. In 722, he established temples throughout the country to worship Laozi. He also founded a school dedicated to teaching Taoism.

Several years later, the emperor issued an edict to create an image of Laozi to be spread throughout the country. In 733, the emperor personally annotated the Tao Te Ching and included the book in the imperial exam. In 741, he opened more Taoist schools to teach Taoism.

All these efforts helped people understand the tradition of cultivation practice, particularly Taoism.

Levitation in Broad Daylight

In Legend of Immortals, Ge Hong documented numerous accounts of people who achieved the Tao and levitated in broad daylight. Let’s look at the legend of Xie Ziran, the only Taoist whose levitation was recorded in orthodox history.

This happened in 794, during the era of Emperor Dezong in the Tang Dynasty. Xie, who was 27 at the time, levitated in front of thousands of people at Guozhou (in today’s Nanchong City, Sichuan Province).

According to Taiping Guangji, Xie had been a very tranquil child. Peaceful and polite, she enjoyed reading and memorizing Tao Te Ching. Her father Xie Huan, originally from Yanzhou, lived in Guozhou and was a local official. Her mother was from a prestigious family in Yizhong.

Between the ages of 7 and 10, Xie traveled with two nuns, one after the other, to practice cultivation. After returning home, she moved into Laozi’s Temple in a nearby mountain to live. One day when she was 14, the food suddenly seemed disgusting to her, like maggots. So from that point on, she stopped eating.

At that time, her father had been traveling for a few years in other places. When he returned home, he couldn’t accept the sight of his daughter not eating and considered it an illusion. He said, “Our family has followed Confucianism for generations. Anything outside orthodox Confucian teachings are unacceptable. How can we allow such witchcraft?” He locked his daughter in a room for over 40 days. However, when Xie was released, her father was surprised to discover that she was even more pure and refreshed.

In 790, when Xie was 23, Han Yi became the new governor. He suspected that Xie was just pretending not to eat, so he invited her to live in a room in the government compound. When Xie came out of the room several months later, she looked just the same. Her voice was still clear and vibrant. Han and his entire family visited Xie and he was so astonished by her that he asked his daughter Han Ziming to learn from Xie.

In 793, Li Jian became the new governor. In the following year, Xie moved to a Taoist temple on March 3 (Lunar calendar). That day was bright and magnificent, different from other days. Xie said that some deities and divine beings were gathering on that day. The deer in the forest even behaved differently and many fawns weren’t afraid to peacefully interact with people.

Xie was a serious person and didn’t talk casually about Taoist cultivation, even to her own parents. Because the governor Li was very devout in Taoism, Xie said a few words to him. “When it comes to reciting scripture, one needs to do it wholeheartedly. The number of scriptures recited is not that important,” she explained. “If someone cultivates the Tao but gives up part way, they will lose more than those who didn’t even start cultivating the Tao. That is why one has to be very careful!”

By then, Xie had not eaten for 13 years. On November 9, 794, she went to the government compound to bid farewell to Li, and said, “I will leave in the middle of the month.” From then on, she no longer went to the meditation room.

Xie departed by levitating in broad daylight on the morning of November 20, from above Jinquan Temple. Thousands of people watched it happen. Her grandmother, mother, younger sister Xie Zirou, and disciple Li Sheng heard her final words, “Only by cultivating diligently can one achieve the Tao.”

Shortly afterwards, the mountain was covered by colorful clouds. For a long time, there was the sound of celestial music and a special fragrance. Several pieces of clothing and a hairpiece she often wore were left behind on her bed. They were placed there as usual, as though she’d left them there.

After Xie levitated, people saw the following sentences inscribed on a wall in the hall:

To whom it may concern, family and relatives I had,
please take good care of yourself and do not feel sad;
Cultivating your virtue and practicing kindness,
by obeying the precepts and reciting the scriptures you will make progress.
After many tribulations,
you will reach your destination;
Somehow in the future on the pure land with vast plains,
may we meet each other again.

Governor Li and military officer Wei Gao reported all this to Emperor Dezong. The emperor issued an edict in praise of Xie. (Sichuan Provincial Local History Office published the edict online.)

Li then erected a monument in Jinquan Temple that described Xie’s story. He also wrote The Legend of the Eastern Immortal that recorded her story in detail. This book was lost, but the New Book of Tang, an orthodox history book, referenced the book and documented its abstract. Even Han Yu, one of the greatest scholars in the Tang Dynasty, believed that the story of Xie was real, and mentioned it in a poem.

After the Tang Dynasty, legends of miracles were also documented in later dynasties. Ji Gong, a renowned monk during the Song Dynasty, transported huge logs from Sichuan to Hang Zhou through the river using supernormal abilities. Qiu Chuji, a famous Taoist in the Song Dynasty, traveled a long distance to meet Genghis Khan in the desert, and successfully stopped his slaughter. Similarly, Zhang Sanfeng created tai chi and left countless legends during the Ming Dynasty.

Levitation has also been recorded in Western society by those who followed spiritual paths in the Western tradition. The Catholic Church documented over 70 occasions of levitation by St. Joseph of Cupertino. Similar miracles were also recorded about St. Teresa of Avila and others.

For thousands of years, people have been wondering where we came from, why we are here, and more importantly, what we will become. The incidents mentioned above are intriguing. But what do they mean for us?

Unprecedented Havoc

For thousands of years, the spiritual traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism have not only upheld moral values but also profoundly enriched Chinese culture. Their influence is visible in historic records, folk operas, temple architecture, clothing culture, and literary and artistic works. Stories like Journey to the West, Ji Gong, The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, and Investiture of the Gods have been passed down through countless generations.

After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949, it imposed atheism across various aspects of society, including culture, education, architecture, religion, and folk operas. The damage was systematic and thorough, affecting everything from ideology to grassroots culture.

According to The Theory and Practice of the CCP’s Suppression of Religion, written by Bai Zhi, there were 800,000 monks and nuns in China in 1949. Five years later, only a little over 70,000 remained in 1954. Before International Women's Day on March 8, 1951, the Women’s Federation in Changsha of Hunan Province ordered all nuns in the province to get married or engaged within a few days.

More than 2,300 Tibetan monasteries once stood in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan. Many were destroyed during the war, and by early 1959, most had been closed, occupied, or demolished. Of the over 170,000 lamas, most of them were forced to return to secular life.

Ten Years of Catastrophe: Blood and Tears in the Capital by Tong Xing is about the chaos that followed the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Everything related to worshiping—including Buddhist temples, Taoist temples, churches, and scriptures —became targets of the Red Guards. According to incomplete statistics, of the 6,843 historical and cultural sites in Beijing alone, 4,922 were destroyed, and 538,000 cultural relics were destroyed.

The Sixth Patriarch Huineng once preached in Nanhua Temple (in today’s Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province). After he passed away in 713, his preserved bodywas enshrined in the main hall of Nanhua Temple. Over 1,000 years have passed, yet the body remained intact and had not decayed.

However, a calamity struck during the Cultural Revolution. According to the Collected Teachings of Venerable Master Foyuan, “The Red Guards placed the mummified body of the Sixth Patriarch on a handcart and paraded it around Shaoguan. They denounced him as a villain, a fake, and a deceiver, threatening to burn him. In the end, someone struck him with an iron rod, creating a hole the size of a bowl in his back and chest. They pulled out his internal organs and threw them in the main hall. His ribs and spine were scattered everywhere. The Red Guards also called them pig bones or dog bones.” Additionally, they placed an iron bowl on the Sixth Patriarch’s head, inscribed with the word “villain.”

This is just one of countless examples of how the CCP has damaged spiritual systems in the past. Now, it is causing harm in a different way. Although the temples have been rebuilt or expanded, they are no longer peaceful sanctuaries for a spiritual life.

The Shaolin Temple, renowned as one of China’s most famous Buddhist temples, has now become a major tourism attraction. A visitor in the summer of 2025 observed that the temple had essentially become a commercial enterprise. Traditionally, a temple might only sell incense and candles. However, the entrance to the scenic area is a bustling commercial district with restaurants, milk tea shops, and local specialty stores. Inside the temple, shops not only sell religious items and bracelets, but also conduct fortune-telling services and personalized name-based painting, she reported.

In addition, if one rides the cable car to the top, he or she would find bone-setting services with Shaolin Kung Fu. “All service providers are dressed in monks’ robes with shaved heads. I don’t know if they are real monks or fake ones,” the tourist remarked. “There are also numerous fees: 30 yuan for the shuttle, 25 yuan for a sightseeing bus, an entrance fee of 80 yuan, and a cable car ride for 100 yuan. These total 235 yuan per person. On top of that, there is a 100 yuan guide fee, and 300 yuan for calligraphy and paintings.”

Throughout history, all major civilizations have held beliefs in the divine, as have the world’s main religions. Recognizing our creation by the divine encouraged humility and modesty, as credit was given to the divine rather than ourselves.

Traditional Chinese culture, in particular, emphasized the profound harmony between heaven and earth. Guided by the teachings from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, generations have respected one another and practiced kindness for thousands of years. As the CCP harms China and threatens the world, it is more important than ever to understand the situation and find a path forward. History has shown us that the CCP’s reliance on class struggle, hatred, and lies cannot endure. By embracing moral values and following our conscience, we move toward a better future.

(The end)