Buchempfehlung “Opening the Dragon Gate…”

Buchempfehlung “Opening the Dragon Gate…”

In Northeastern China in 1962, three old men came to the door of the Wang family house asking for food.  Wang Liping, the boy who answered the door, knew immediately that there was something different about them.  They were the three lineage holders of the Dragon Gate sect of Taoism, and for the next several years, Wang Liping would study with them in remote and mountainous places.  Opening the Dragon Gate follows the path of the young disciple as his masters systematically transmit to him the tools of self-mastery.

The book is a spiritual adventure, gripping in style, endlessly fascinating in its details, and uplifting in its view of human potential.  There are any number of useful principles and techniques to pull out, but here are just a few, and they should sound familiar:

Sitting:  Wang Liping’s first prolonged exercise involved sitting for long periods of time and remained the most important kind of exercise.  Sitting in this sense “requires that the mind be still as a mountain all the time, whatever you are doing, in action or repose.”

Stillness: The Taoist teaching of stillness requires not allowing external influences of any kind to disturb the mind.  “Whatever you are doing, always strive to overcome perceptions, cognitions and feelings, and you will have no afflictions.”

Cultivation: Life is something to be cultivated with care and deliberation.  Most people, as the Taoist masters observe, do not know how to do this systematically.  This is the main theme of the book, and so I will encourage you to read it rather than recapitulating the whole thing.

Cultivation ranges from sophisticated energy work through theoretical education to such basics as diet.  One of the first things the three masters do is to teach Wang Liping fasting and eliminate such harmful substances as grains from his diet.  Of course, there are many higher realms of refinement which we will leave to the book.

Everyday Tasks: None of the above effort is any good without exerting the effort to live differently, to clean up the inputs and outputs, as it were, of daily life.  That is where “everyday tasks” come in.

There are two sorts of these tasks.  The “external” tasks include avoiding envy and jealousy, avoiding malice and the desire to overcome others, not watching for other people’s faults, not boasting, and not talking about likes and dislikes.

The “internal” task is basically watchfulness, monitoring your inner state to eliminate doubts, fears and harmful desires to achieve a state of clarity and inner freedom.

Even though these are some of the most basic methods, they are by far the most indispensable.  This is the foundation that allowed Wang Liping to take his studies to the highest levels, and is indispensable for anyone starting out in any authentic tradition.

Opening The Dragon Gate - Taoist Wizard