In 1963, in Liao Ning Province there was a small village. It was a normal village, just like any other. Everything there was peaceful and the villagers went on with their normal daily lives. The men went to work, the women stayed at home to take care of the family and the children went to school.
Liao Ning Province
image credit : china.org.cn
One day something unusual happened and a lot of people gathered together in the village square. It seemed that there was something special going on. Many of the people who had gathered in the square were very ill and sick, but they seemed to be very happy.
All the people were talking and they could be heard saying, “It is amazing” and “I feel better”. Some said with wonder and happiness, “All the pain is gone!”.
At the center of the crowd were two men who were dressed in old fashioned clothes that looked like Taoist uniforms and they each wore a hat that had on it the Yin and Yang symbol.
The men’s eyes showed very strong spirit, they had dark tanned faces as if they were always out in the sun and they appeared to be around forty to fifty years old.
Sick people were brought before the men who looked at them, then after awhile would put their hands around them.Soon the person began to feel better. Afterwards they were so happy they bowed to the men and said thank you for healing them again and again.
The two men were actually the seventeenth generation inheritors of the Dragon Gate sect of Taoism. They had come to the village to heal people and everyone they treated had amazing results. Some had suffered with their illness for many years with no relief, only to be healed by these Taoist monks.
Soon, the whole village knew about the Taoist monks. Everybody talked about them and how amazing their skill was. It seemed the Taoists knew not only healing skills, but they also knew the past and future and had knowledge of many supernatural things.
The most curious of all the people were the children of the village. They could talk of nothing else.
There was one little boy named, Wang Li Ping (June-1949. wikipedia) who was as curious as the others, but his family were highly educated and believed in Western science.
His father was an engineer who everyday dealt with a lot of scientific knowledge.
His six brothers and sisters had only ever heard about Western science and old Chinese customs were not practiced in his home. His family believed that there was nothing more advanced than the Western knowledge. Yet how, Wang Li Ping wondered, could these Taoists heal people without giving them any medicine?
Dragon Gate sect of Taoism Temple
Wang Li Ping knew that a lot of his classmates had gone to see the Taoist monks the day before. They had come back saying it must be magic.
He wanted to go and see for himself but he was afraid that his father would not be happy about this. However, at the end of their school lessons, some of his classmates decided to see the Taoist monks.
They asked Wang Li Ping if he was interested and of course he was.
He remembered that when he was five years old there was a fire at home and he had burnt the left side of his head. It did not cause serious injury,but since then his left eye muscles had become weaker and from time to time he felt pain there. His parents had taken him to many hospitals but they never had any really good results.
Wang Li Ping therefore decided to go with his classmates and see the Taoists. Full of curiosity, just like in a new game, the children stood and watched the monks do some strange movements on the sick people who after awhile felt better.
Wang Li Ping found it very interesting.
He had never seen anything like this before so he got closer to get a better look.
The monks saw the little boy and suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked at each other. It seemed as if they were talking to each other without saying a word.
It was very quiet when suddenly the Taoist monks smiled, then laughed and said,“We found it! We found it!”.
They knelt beside Wang Li Ping and held him tightly in their arms, like one would when finding something very valuable that had been lost for a long time. Some people thought that they must be relatives or that they knew each other in some other way. However, Wang Li Ping had never seen the monks before.
Still the monks seemed very happy to see Wang Li Ping.
Wang was now a little scared, he no idea what was going on. Everyone was staring at him and the monks were still holding him tightly. He said, “Can you let me go. I need to go home.”
They answered, “We will go with you because you will be our student and will study our skill.”
Wang Li Ping did not understand what they meant. However,he was beginning to feel more relaxed as it seemed the monks would not harm him.
The Taoists then said to the crowd of villagers, “Today we will not treat people but must leave it for another day. We have something to do.”
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear
Afterward, Wang Li Ping felt that he needed to bring the Taoist monks back home to see his parents.The two monks followed him home to see his parents and explain what had taken place.
Wang Li Ping’s parents were very surprised to see the Taoists at their home. The Taoists introduced themselves as ‘Ying Ling Zi’ and ‘Song Ling Zi’ from the Dragon Gate Sect of the Complete Reality School of Taoism.
They told them how they had come to the village looking for the person who would inherit their system. They had both seen a child’s face in a dream and this child would be the 18th generation inheritor of their Dragon Gate System.
The dream had also told them in which area the child would be. So they had come to the village to look for him and at the same time they could heal the sick people of the village. After a couple of days in the village they had found the child they had seen in their dream; it was Wang Li Ping.
Now they were here to ask his parents if Wang Li Ping could study with them.
Of course, at first Wang Li Ping’s parents refused. They wanted their child to grow up normally, to have a good education, get a good job and have a good future.
The Taoists said the left side of Wang Li Ping’s head and his left eye had been injured and that they should be ableto cure this. This would be good for him and he did not have to give up his schooling.
The monks insisted on helping Wang Li Ping and eventually his parents agreed, so long as it did not effect his school studies. They thought it might be good for him to learn some exercises for his health.
From that time, Wang Li Ping continued with his school education and followed the monks to learn Taoism. After one month his old injury had healed and his head and eye felt normal.
Whilst studying the Dragon Gate System, he found it covered many different skills, meditation, moving Qigong, healing techniques, diagnosis of illness, herbs, martial arts, I-Ching, Feng Shui and palm and face reading. Some skills were very unusual and used sounds to heal. The monks even gave him a Taoist name, ‘Live Forever’.
One day, after studying, the weather was very bad and it was raining very hard. Wang Li Ping’s teacher, Yin Ling Zi, said,“Li Ping, I can stop the rain.”
Wang Li Ping looked at his teacher and did not know what to say. Common sense told him it was impossible, but he knew his teacher had some amazing skills.
With that, his teacher went outside into the rain and looked round as if surveying the situation. Then, holding two fingers together on one hand and holding onto his wrist with the other,he said something and pointed at the sky.
After awhile the rain seemed to get weaker and then finally stopped. Wang Li Ping was very surprised and this made him study harder and listen to everything his teachers said.
He thought they must almost be immortal.
The more he studied the more he learnt about the Dragon Gate System. The system had a very long history, dating back to the Han Dynasty, more than one thousand years ago.
There is a saying that says “All kinds of Qigong come from Taoism”.
In the Han Dynasty there lived a man named ‘Zhong Li Han’, because it was the Han Dynasty people also called him, ‘Han Zhong Li’. He was also a Taoist and his Taoist name was ‘Positive Yang Taoist’.
He created Taoist Immortal Skill and he passed it onto another Taoist called ‘Pure Yang Taoist’ who was also called ‘Lu Dong Bin’.
There are eight very famous immortals in China. Everybody knows of them. There are two of them and they are very popular in China, even children know about them. They created, Golden Dan Big Method and also the Three Immortal Gong. These were passed to Wong Zhong Yang who created another system called the, ‘All True System’. He passed his skill onto his student, Qiu Chu Ji, also named, Spring True Man. Qiu studied very hard and then developed all these skills to form the Dragon Gate System. This was then passed down from generation to generation.
Qiu Chu Ji was a very famous and popular Taoist in the Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis Khan conquered the Song Dynasty. Genghis Khan invited Qiu to see him, and even wrote a letter saying how much he respected his Taoist skill.You can still see this letter in Lama Temple in Beijing.
Zhong Li Han
You can also see statues of Zhong Li Han and Lu Dong Bin in the White Cloud Taoist Temple in Beijing, where people go to pay their respects and worship. The Taoist Dragon Gate System has one skill called ‘Spiritual Treasure Intelligence Internal Training Method’.
Its principle is, save your life first and second live long. It develops healing skill. It makes you healthy and live long, like an immortal. The method concentrates more on meditation and to open up the hidden part of the brain. It develops the human potential that we do not usually use, our sixth sense and intuition.
The Dragon Gate System also has Three Gong and Nine Methods.
Qiu Chu Ji
The Three Gong (Gong means work or exercise) are: Meditation Gong, Balancing Gong and Sleeping Gong.
The Nine methods are the Intelligence Method, Illness Diagnosis Method, Healing Method, Spiritual Method, Holding Heat Method, Holding Life and Death Method, Immortal Method, Cutting Spirit Method and the Image Method.
All these Gong and Methods require a lot of Qi to be developed. Then you can open the hidden parts of your brain and use more of your human potential. When training you even have to bring your body close to death to let the best parts survive, then your potential can be opened.
It also relates to nature, particularly to heaven and earth as these give us life and Qi. This follows the Taoist saying,“Heaven and man become one”. This means man must relate to nature, to heaven and earth.
Lu Dong Bin
All these skills are based on Taoist principles like yin and yang, the Five Elements and the Bagua. Thus Wang Li Ping started his hard journey of Taoism like the ancient people,to find out the key to nature, to heaven and earth.
Wang Li Ping spent ten years studying Daoism and Qigong. It was a very difficult thing even for an adult and especially for a child.
People used to say “training as a Buddhist monk is suffering!”, however,the training to become a Daoist monk is very bitter as well. You can say that nowadays people will not do it. Also they do not have the opportunity to study with someone who has this traditional skill.
Wang Li Ping was only twelve years old when he was accepted as the eighteenth generation heir by his teachers. From that day he was treated differently, more seriously and more directly.
His teachers wanted him to reach a good level in their Daoist skill and wished that the quality of their skill was passed down correctly.
The first step was meditation to train the heart.
Children are a little wild, they do not easily listen or calm down. So his teacher wanted him to meditate for four hours! How can a child meditate for four hours? It is very difficult, even for someone who has practiced meditation for a very long time.
However, Wang Li Ping had to take it and overcome it. This was a test to see if he could inherit the skill.
They watched as they saw Wang Li Ping’s heart change as he became calmer and more settled. You have to train the heart to calm down,then you can follow the traditional way and reach a good level of skill.
If you fail at training your heart, future teaching is useless, you will only waste the teacher’s time.
Wang’s teachers put him in a very dark room which was about ten meters square, with no light at all. First he had to sit in a half lotus position and then go on to a full lotus position.
The lotus position is a cross legged sitting position for meditation. A half lotus position you sit with one leg on the other,which leg on top depends on which is more comfortable for you.
In a full lotus you have both legs crossing over with both feet on your thighs. When you use this sitting position you can sit and meditate for along time,if you can stand it.
When you sit like this your legs will go numb and at first it can be quite painful. A lot of people find it very hard and too uncomfortable. But the more you do the easier it becomes until you can do the full lotus quite easily.
In the beginning, Wang Li Ping found it very hard, even the half lotus. At first he thought it would not be too difficult because he was young and children’s bodies are usually more supple.
So doing the half lotus or full lotus was not difficult at all, the hard part was sitting still for four hours.
The majority of children can sit for awhile, but sitting for ten or even fifteen minutes is hard for them and so they will find some excuse to stop. If you let them do this how can you pass your skill on to them?
Chinese say, “The bitter goes and the sweet comes”.
Of course as Wang Li Ping was only twelve he could not stand it. From time to time his teachers had to check on him because they knew if he could not stand it he would move his legs.
They knew how he felt as they had been in the same situation many years ago. So his teachers used a rope to tie his legs and arms so that he could not move out of position. Thus they made him stay still and train his heart.
Surprisingly, after two months he grew quite used to it and although it was painful in the beginning, it became easier and easier. Finally he did not feel any discomfort at all, it felt quite normal.
Wang Li Ping knew that the training was good for him and he found that after meditation he had more energy, felt more awake, calmer and healthier. He felt as if his whole body had changed.
When Wang Li Ping’s teachers saw he could handle the full lotus sitting position comfortably, they started him on the next stage.
This was sleeping meditation.
They put him in a box which was just big enough for him to lie down in. He could not sit and he could not turn over. There were no holes for the air to come in, so he had to survive on the Qi he had developed over the past two months.
When they saw he could do this they put him in a big pot of water!
The pot was just big enough for him to sit in, and his teachers even locked him inside so he could not get out. In the pot there was no air and not light. He had to learn how to survive and his body started to change so that he could survive in those circumstances.
However, Wang Li Ping seemed to learn this very well and over came all these difficult circumstances. His body changed and he became healthier and healthier.
After six hard months of this training Wang Li Ping’ s teachers dug a hole and buried him in it. Then they “You have to train the heart, then you can reach a good level of skill.” Of course his teachers were around to help.
What a poor boy! But for everything he did he received the benefits and he developed an amazing body which could survive many things. He could survive when there was no air, no light and any weather, cold or hot.
With the third stage he started to learn how to survive with no food.
Without food most people will die, however, when you practice Qigong you learn to survive with the air. Even without any food your body will adjust to create its own Qi.This ability is usually hidden and comes from your parents when you are born.
Fasting is a method in which you learn how to survive without food and live with natural air, which is Qi.
During practice you gather Qi from the air and do not need food to give you energy. But people are used to relying on food to live and the whole body becomes very weak when they go without it. We do not realize how powerful our bodies are, and that we can survive many days without food.
When you stop eating, all the sick,weak cells will die and only the good ones survive. These cells actually become stronger than before.
It is like a big company. If it is not making money the boss has to get rid of some of the staff. Of course he usually gets rid of the lazy ones and keeps on those who work hard and are more talented.
Nature is like this. The good and strong survive while the weak and vulnerable will go. This is why the human race has survived for so many generations.
Wang Li Ping learnt how to survive without food for three days, five days,ten days, fifteen days,twenty days up to twenty-eight days. This was also very hard for him and so he had to practise more to balance his internal body.
Then his internal body became stronger and stronger as his Qi became stronger and his mind became very powerful.
Qi Magazin vol. 40 and 41 (Aprl 1999)
Republished with permission of Master Micheal Tse
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