The Dragon Gate's Core Methods Vol.1

The Dragon Gate’s Core Methods Vol. 1 (Longmen Xinfa 龍門心法) is a collection of ordination sermons that were given in 1663 by the great Daoist master, Wang Changyue王常月 (?-1680) at the Jasper Garden Temple in Jinling, present-day Nanjing. ‘Wang, the Constant Moon’ was the first Qing Dynasty abbot of White Cloud Monastery in Beijing and was instrumental in the revitalisation of the Dragon Gate Sect, the main monastic order of the Complete Realization School in China.Wang Changyue’s speech to an assembly of novices provides a set of requirements for renunciants in twenty chapters, of which this Vol. 1 covers the first ten. His text provides a fascinating and highly original synthesis of Daoist and Mahayana Buddhist concepts, values and practices. In the ten chapters of this volume, Wang elucidates topics such as the cultivation of body and mind, the removal of ‘cause and effect’ or karma, the pursuit of purity and stillness and the search for true masters, among many others. Wang guides our way across the crucial stepping-stones for aspiring students on the path to the dao. Each chapter is also supported by an illuminating commentary by the well-known contemporary Dragon Gate Daoist master, Xing De (also known as Li Shifu), the residing abbot of Five Immortals Temple in the Wudang Mountains. The text is also supplemented by classically sourced biographies of Qiu Chuji, the founder of the Dragon Gate Sect, Zhao Fuyang, Wang’s master, Wang Changyue and Min Yide, the compiler of the work.The book is rounded off by a detailed appendix that includes amongst others the translations of the hagiography of Guangcheng Zi, the first reincarnation of the Supreme Elder Sovereign, and an exposition of the most foundational precepts within the Dragon Gate Sect, in two entries called 'The Five Precepts of Daoism' and 'The Precepts of the Initial Truth', the latter by Wang Changyue himself.“It will be especially welcome for individuals interested in late imperial andmodern Daoism and for understanding Daoism from a lived and living perspective. Given the increasing misrepresentation of Lóngmén, it may further help to separate wheat from chaff.”—Louis Komjathy, Ph.D.,Author of Entering Stillness and Primer for Translating Daoist Literature Read more