Master Li Hechun is a young master of the Longmen (Dragon Gate) branch of the Ch'uan-chen (Complete Perfection) School of Taoism in China. With this branch, the emphasis is more on inner cultivation and the practice of neidan, inner alchemy - all in the interest of cultivating the spirit and benefiting the world. Master Li has been roaming the Taoist world of sacred mountains to learn with great masters and hermits. His early training was at a temple in the Zhongnan mountain, its qualities held in esteem by Taoists for centuries. At seven years of age, Master Li started his education to become a Taoist master which includes Taoist philosophy, cosmology, history, arts, rituals and meditative practices. Presently Master Li lives in the Chingyang Gong Taoist Temple in the city of Chengdu, China. He puts all his heart into propagating the values of Taoist culture and the benefits of Taoist philosophy, practice and lifestyle to everyone. Master Li´s published books and articles serve to revitalize the public interest in Taoist culture and its importance to a balanced development of modern China.

                                                               

                                                           An Interview with Taoist Master Li Hechun

 

Harrison: First of all, Master Li, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and your life? How did you realize that you wanted to become a Taoist, and how do you live your life as a Taoist?

Master Li: I think a person’s ideas and dreams for the future and feelings and many things come from the place they’re from, one’s family and educations are very important. For me, I was born in 1978, which was the beginning of China’s policy of opening up, so I am very happy about that. I was born in a very traditional Chinese family that lived out in the pure mountain and nature. I would like to introduce a little bit about my hometown and my family and myself. My hometown is a very famous, ancient place for hermits. It’s in the mountains and in nature, so it’s very nice.
The mountains there are called Zhongnan Mountains, the South Mountains. The American writer Bill Porter came to the area I’m from in the 1980s, and interviewed the hermits living there for his book Hermit Heaven, and in the book he says that the phrase Zhongnan Mountains originally means Mountains of the Moon. In ancient times there were also hermits studying and practicing there, to get their education from nature. It’s far away from the big cities, so it’s very nice. My family is a very traditional family; my mother was a TCM doctor.

I remember a long, long time ago, more than twenty years ago. When I was young my father died. I remember I was in elementary school, at that time I was five or six years old. That’s about the time that I begin to have clear memories of my childhood. Afterwards I met a Taoist master; he came to the family to help my mother. He was tall and thin with a full beard and wore a long sky-blue robe. His eyes looked very wise. He also helped other people, sick people. He always helped people. He gave them medicine and herbs and acupuncture and everything. So at that time I had a lot of good connection with this Taoist master and I got to observe his daily life. So some interesting things came to my mind. So I saw him wake up very early in the morning and do practice by himself. He did cultivation practice and walking and calligraphy and ceremony,
he did many things. So in my mind he really had the life of an artist. Afterwards I watched TV and saw TV shows about gongfu and martial arts.
I was interested in that, I thought maybe I could be a hero, too, yeah?
So I could also help some people. So I started to study martial arts with the Taoist master who came to my mother’s house, practice with him in the morning and evening, so I got a lot of feeling from him. I started to think about him a lot, I think he never studied in any university. But he was a really…
I really liked him. He was very wise, very relaxed, and very warm. I felt that he was very warm. Then while I was studying in middle school, I saw a movie on television that really touched my heart.
The movie was set in ancient times, about three or four thousand years ago in the Zhou Dynasty. It was about a hermit, a Taoist hermit named Jiang Ziya. The story was about him and how he could help the people to manage the country and cultivate their spiritual lives.

So I was thinking about the images of immortals and heroes that I saw on TV, and about the Taoist master who came to my home. He really touched my heart. So I started to think about education, and what education is. I started thinking about our education from the schools, from university; I started thinking about this when I was in middle school. I think the masters in ancient times never studied in school, they never studied in university. But they were very clever, very wise. How can they be like that? I started to think, how can they do that？So I started thinking, the master; he follows his master, right? Maybe spend his whole life with his master, yeah? Maybe many many years. What did he study? He studied from the connection, education from nature. It’s not like now-a-days when we study in University and what we study is just knowledge. The knowledge that we learn now is information, it’s not wisdom. So we’ve lost wisdom. We take too much information into our minds, increasing our desires, so we’ve lost ourselves. So now when people get knowledge, get information, what kind of information are they getting? It’s just concepts about very superficial things, they show you things that you can see and touch, and they tell you what this is and what that is, and give thousands of meanings and translations. But they make the people really crazy. That means the people have lost the original relationship [with nature]. Originally they have everything, they learn from nature. But after they study, they lose everything, and then the desires come and make them crazy and sick and suffering, and worrying and angry and happy. But this happiness is not true happiness, yeah? Like we say that the sun and moon rise in the east and set in the west. You think that this is true. But it’s because we’re watching it from this perspective here on the earth that it’s like that. We see it like this, and you think that this is true, but this is not true. Like when someone dies, people look at him and say he’s already dead, but they don’t know what death is. They don’t know the people are born in a new life again. When people are born, the start of life means the beginning of death, yeah? And death is the beginning of being born, the new life. So I started thinking, knowledge cannot really calm our hearts, it cannot really help our practice very much, so I gave up studying in the school. I quit the school and went to search for a master. I visited many mountains to see many masters over many years. After I met my master, he didn’t talk too much. He was also a TCM doctor. He really didn’t talk too much. I followed him to do the daily life. Temple life is very simple, when the sun comes up we wake up, we do chanting, we do praying, we do ceremony. We clean the temple, we do meditation, we do cultivation practice. Life is very simple sometimes, yeah? Sometimes it’s very simple. But sometimes it’s really hard, you know? You have to really discover yourself, find your original nature. So after I met this master, he sent me to many many different masters to learn with them. I met many different masters, even a very great master and a famous master, but they didn’t talk too much either. We just spent time together, spent life with them, and we feel each other, we had a connection from the heart, an internal connection. We always get the most education from nature. The masters always say that Heaven and Earth have a great beauty; you don’t need to talk about it. The four seasons have a very clear relationship; you don’t need to discuss it. It’s very peaceful; it’s a very peaceful life. After I met them I also spent half a year by myself to practice and meditate in a cave alone. It was very peaceful, very quiet, and calmed my heart. I spent time with nature; I had a very full spiritual life. We don’t need anything, everything is in nature, and everything is in unity. The real education is from the peaceful and natural. This is me, yeah?

Harrison: How do you see Daoism’s place in the modern world?

Master Li: So must people think Daoism is religious. For me, I started learning about and having contact with Daoism more than 20 years ago, from that time until now I’ve been learning and practicing and staying in Daoist temples with Daoist masters, so I really know that Daoism is not religious. It is not what Western and Chinese people think of as religious. It’s not religious. For me, I think, it’s not religious. In ancient times, ancient traditional time, everybody had a search for Dao. In the West also, like with Jesus and Buddha, everybody was searching for Dao,learning about
Dao, practicing Dao. Also in ancient times, in Ancient China, many philosophies and wisdom, like Confucius, everybody was searching for Dao, what is Dao. Dao means the universal and natural relationship.  Dao is the way. It’s the life. It’s everything. Daoism in the Chinese language is called the Daoist teaching, so it’s learning from nature and practicing from nature and then you teach how to stay in the nature. How can you contact with the nature and learn education from the nature so every wisdom starts with learning about Dao and practicing Dao from the master. The master only teaches two things, it’s the transmission and the method. The transmission has two transmissions, the active transmission （gongfa功法） and heart transmission （xinfa心法）, and these two transmissions have to be united into the Dao Transmission (daofa 道法) in your own practice. This Daofa naturally develops. This is the law of your own heart; it has its own natural law to unite the two into one. So in ancient china, all the different schools of thought and the philosophers saw the Dao as natural law, natural relationship. The law/relationship of the universe’s natural rhythms and cycles. The teaching about how to stay with this natural relationship. In Daoism, you have to learn everything from nature, and then you can understand reality. It’s not knowledge; knowledge is already in the past, in history. Only understanding is now, understanding is from your heart, you’re feeling. From your heart, from the spiritual, from everything, from unity. This understands reality, what they call Wu Dao or Zhi Dao. It’s not knowledge. The culture that Chinese people talk about is from the heart, it’s from love. Love from your heart, and teach the others. Really love everything， from your heart, and teach everyone, we call this culture. So Daoism, I think the history—everybody writes about the Daoist history from the Eastern Han Dynasty, but this is not what I think. Like philosophy, philosophy has no history—philo sophia, right? It’s love. Love has no history, you understand. So Daoist history comes from humans, but when people discover civilization Dao is already there. It’s already there. It’s always with us. So we just need to know and learn how to stay in a natural life, a healthy life. So Dao can be nature, can be balance and harmony. So we also have many many ways to practice and understand reality. Anything you can practice, you can understand reality, even art or music, any kind of practice like meditation or chanting or ceremony. Anything. If you know the Way, then it will be easy for you to understand reality. If you’ve lost the Way, then you cannot be a good artist nor has a good life or a happy, healthy life. So in the future, and now in the modern society, everybody stays in the big city and has modern civilization, there are too many things which increase our desires, so they lose themselves, lose their direction. So people are really not balanced, not happy. They get sick, get angry. Look at the people, they think they are happy. It’s not true. So for me I think the people really get their education from school, they get it the wrong way. The teachers and the knowledge give you a mistake you don’t know what you have to do. So they are very confused. Mistakes, mistakes. So I think they really need some Daoist practice. How can you keep your heart quiet, peaceful, balanced? This is the most important.

Now, a person’s knowing of a thing is limited by xianxiang, sensory impressions, and concepts. They have an image or an impression, and then use countless concepts to describe it. So the knowledge that a lot of people get is wrong information. They get the wrong information, so they make mistakes. It’s like, they give you something, and then use countless things to try and explain it. What is it originally? How do you we use it? This thing is for us to use, it’s not that we get information about it to be used by it. It’s just like a person who has a lot of money; a very rich person is actually possessed by money, right? Actually a person with a lot of money, a rich person, is possessed by his money. He doesn’t have his own self anymore. He enjoys his money, he always counts, how much money do I have? Every day he lives for his money. It’s very difficult and stressful. Right? This is one question. Now, what was the other question?

Harrison: The other question was about religion, about whether or not Daoism fits the modern concept of religion or not.

Master Li: Modern people’s understanding of religion isn’t a single concept. What do regular people see as religion? They feel that all the spirits or God or Buddha can protect them. They think this is all religion, related to religion. Right? But the academic world isn’t like this; they analyze the question “What is religion?” very clearly. They analyze religion very clearly. This is one way of knowing what religion is, the information and knowledge that they get is one situation. But there’s another kind of person, what are they like? They just live their lives this way, just like this, very natural. They pray, chant, meditate very naturally. You don't have to say “you must believe” or “you must not believe.” That’s not related to this. It’s a way of living. For example, a monk or a practitioner or a hermit, they won’t tell you: you have to believe this or believe that. They won’t tell you that kind of thing.

These days, what is the information that most people get?
“You have to believe in science.” You have to live scientifically. What is science? Right now it’s very popular to talk about “science.” Actually, what is science? These days some people say “You must believe in science,” but this statement is wrong. This phrase “believe in science” is superstition! Science is not something for you to believe in or have faith in, it’s just a process used to confirm and negate things, and it’s different according to different times and places. Today something is right, and tomorrow it’s wrong, and the next day it’s right again. It’s limited by different times and places, so the information that you get is different. It belongs to concepts limited by time and space. But Truth doesn’t change. What is this Truth? The Truth of the operations and transformations of nature and the universe. Laozi said—what is the concept of “Laozi”, Laozi represents Yin-Yang. Laozi is not a concrete person. “Lao” in Chinese means that something is old, “when things are strong they become old”, it means someone is at the end of their life, and “Zi” in Chinese refers to the beginning of a life. So this symbolizes Yin-Yang and the unity of Yin-Yang. What does this Yin-Yang symbolize? It symbolizes harmony, balance, health. So in the Daodejing, what does Laozi say about Truth? He says that truth is xian tian di sheng, duli er bu gai, zhou xing er bu dai先天地生，…独立而不改,周行而不殆 “before Heaven and Earth, independent and unchanging, cycling without harm.”

So it’s earlier than Heaven and Earth. Before Heaven and Earth were both, Truth already existed.
Changing with the changes of nature,  . . . ?

Laozi said wu bu zhi qi ming, qiang ming yue Dao (吾不知其名强名曰道) “I don’t know it’s name, but if we force a name on it, it’s called ‘Dao.’” He doesn’t know what’s name is, either, so he gives it a name and calls it Dao. Dao is the Truth of the operations and transformations of nature and the universe. So it’s not about whether you believe in it or not, whether it exists or not. This isn’t a question we need to discuss. Right? It’s like the changes of nature. “Heaven and Earth have a great beauty, you don’t need to talk about it.  In the day it’s light, and at night its dark, the rising and setting of the sun, it’s the changes of the natural world. This is a very clear concept, why do we have to talk about it？This isn’t something to discuss, it’s very natural. If we try to discuss this too much, it will only give us wrong information. A wrong structure of knowledge. Wrong information. Right?

Getting knowledge about something is not the same as knowing something. Knowledge is already history, it’s in the book, and it’s in the past. It’s just a collection of information, and it’s something that’s totally passed, it’s totally wrong information! This information isn’t the same as really knowing. Knowing is right now, at this moment, a kind of understanding and realization about truth and the natural world. That’s right now, and right now is called “knowing.” This knowing is present; it’s something you get with your whole body and mind.

Now, what is the function of the Dao? Laozi said this. How does this Truth exist in our lives? Laozi said: “大道无形, 生育天地；大道无情，运行日月；大道无名，长养万物” The Great Dao is without form, but it gives birth to heaven and earth; the Great Dao is without sentiment, but it moves the sun and moon; the Great Dao is without name, but it raises and nourishes the ten thousand beings.” This is the function of the Dao; it’s explained very clearly in the Qingjing Jing.

Harrison: I have to ask—you say that Daoism is not religious, not a religion. But you also say that the Truth, the Dao, exists before Heaven and Earth, that it’s an eternal and unchanging Truth. From my own perspective, and I think the perspective of many other Western people, that sounds like a religious Truth. I know that sometimes in Daoism, Laozi is seen as an incarnation of this Dao that Laozi is like a deity who exists before Heaven and Earth come into being. From a Western perspective, this is religious, or at least appears to be religious in our eyes. If you say that Daoism is not a religion, can you give us a definition of what constitutes a “religion”? How is it that you are defining “religion”, and how is it that you’re defining “Daoism”? 

Master Li: No matter whether it’s academic circles, regular people, or people in the religious circles themselves, they all have a name for this. For example, we give this a name, we say it’s a cup, and it’s just that, it’s a cup, when we say “cup” we all think about what a cup is like. We get a xianxiang, we get a mental image, and we get a definition of what it’s like. So how do we understand what “religion” is? It comes from the Western word “religion.” This word comes from the West. This word has four main characteristics. Religion has four main characteristics. One is your scripture, your ideology or dogma. For example, Christianity has the Bible. The second is the religious place, such as a church or a temple. The third is people who transmit the ideology, ministers or priests or Taoists or monks or nuns. The fourth is the believers or followers. These are the four basic characteristics of a religion, If you lack any one of these four, then it doesn’t fit the concept of “religion.” You see it still hasn’t gone past what I said about the problems with concepts. And the concepts about religion are different for normal people, academics, and religious practitioners themselves. The religious practitioners don’t worry about what it is, they just live their lives this way, and it’s a very natural life style. They’re just living according to their own lives, their own lifestyle. Meditation, chanting, praying, it all comes very naturally. They don’t need to use too many names to explain it. It’s like Laozi says in the Daodejing: 有名万物之母, “when there is a name, it is the mother of the ten thousand things”; as soon as you have a name then you gradually get all kinds of different things. And this word “religion”, when translated into Chinese, becomes “zong” and “jiao” it’s two words, two concepts. “zong” is jisi, prayer and sacrifices, and “jiao” is jiaohua, giving people education and instruction. It refers to using prayer and offerings to educate the masses. This is a different concept. As for Daoism, in ancient times “Dao” was the term for the only truth sought by all the different schools of thought and philosopher, including the religious movements that followed. Daojiao refers to using the “Dao” to educate the masses. So all of the methods for spiritual practice come from nature, so it’s method of teaching are also very natural. It teaches you how to be natural, how to live naturally, how to live in harmony with nature. What is this “nature” ancient people talked about? Its rules to be in harmony. It’s like these days’ people like to talk about “yangsheng” [cultivating health / life] a lot of people talk about this cultivation. This means you’ve lot what you originally had. You were originally very healthy, why do you have to nourish your life? You don’t need to. Why do you have to nourish your life, it means you’ve lost the harmony. When you encounter the Dao in your life, it means that you’ve lost the Dao; originally you lived in the Dao. What’s this harmony that we’ve lost? Ancient people said when the sky gets light we should get up; when it gets dark we should sleep. When you’re hungry you should eat. So the ancient sages said richuerzuo,riluoerxi 日出而作，日落而息，When the sun comes up they do things, and then the sun goes down they rest, … These are all rules for living in harmony. Where do they come from? They come from nature.

Harrison: What do you envision for Daoism in the future? What are your hopes and dreams for its future development?


Master Li: For me, I’m very happy to live in the Dao. It’s with a heart of gratitude that I can live in the education of Dao… Dao’s education is like the rain which falls everywhere and nourishes us in the spring, we all grow and develop in the Dao, in nature. And then without knowing it the time has suddenly passed. And the feeling I have today is one of gratitude, an extremely thankful heart. And I hope that others and those around me can live in the education of Dao, just like me, and get a healthy and happy life from it. I have a great belief in the future development of Daoism. First of all, the future development of Daoism, the development of Dao culture, cannot be separated from the development of China, because the development of a culture is closely related to the development of the nation and the people. Right now we see the development of China and its hopes for the future, and this is deeply connected to its cultural developments in the future. A nation’s development, a people’s development, represents the direction of the culture. Now I’ve been going to Western countries for many years now, and I’ve discovered that many Western people are very, very interested in Eastern culture. There’s more and more interest in Daoism, traditional Chinese culture. People are studying Chinese, Laozi, Confucius, the Yijing, every aspect of Eastern culture and philosophy. And there’s also a great deal of interest in health and cultivation aspects, like, since about 20 years ago you can go to almost any bookstore in the West and find lots of books about yoga, right? There are all sorts of different materials, books and DVDs and so forth, and now maybe there are many people practicing Taijiquan and qigong, right? And people are starting to study the Chinese language, too. There is a lot of this kind of cultural diffusion now. So I think that this is a foundation, first Chinese traditional culture is at a foundation. In my hopes, I’ve been to many countries and met many people, my hope is in Austria or Switzerland, a very small country with a small population, the people in this kind of country live lives like Laozi talks about in the Daodejing: ‘a small country with few people.’ It’s a very small country but the people’s culture and thinking is very good, it’s the center of Europe, it’s a very pluralistic and international country, a very special place. And the natural environment is also very good. I’ve been to these countries many times, and I feel that they are a very suitable place for starting a Daoist culture centre. Of course, it wouldn’t be exactly like a Daoist monastery in China. But I think it would be very good, I think everyone cans still their hearts, and at this place they can feel and understand nature. At the same time they can practice spiritual cultivation here, it would be very wonderful. A center like this could function like a bridge. So I hope to be able to start this kind of a foundation in Switzerland, or maybe in Austria. So I hope that it could function like a bridge, and we could bring some accomplished spiritual masters to Europe for some exchange, and they could give teachings and practice together with the people there, and at the same time we could invite some Western people with interest in traditional and ancient Chinese culture, we could invite them to come to China, and take them to some sacred mountains and very special places, so that they could experience more of Daoist culture. So a foundation like this would be a bridge that would help Daoism to develop more in the future. I think this would be really wonderful, it would be a centre where people could study and practice together. This is the kind of thing that I envision for the future of Daoism. I believe that in ancient Daoist culture is a great wealth of things about health and cultivation and many things that will bring joy.
So this is my hope, and of course I also invite many people to come to this kind of group, I would hope that lots of people who are interested in this kind of thing can come to us, and come study with us, even if they don’t have money, if they have an interest they can come to us.

Harrison: How do you use Daoism in your daily life, and how can other people use Daoism in their daily lives?

Master Li: Dao is together with us in all places and at all times. It’s always next to us, it’s always in our lives, it’s even in the plants and trees around us. It’s just that when we go through spiritual cultivation to get an understanding of the Dao, an understanding of human life, an understanding of nature, the realization is different, right? Actually, everything we do is a form of spiritual practice. Our daily lives, when we eat and drink, our work, actually everything we do is always a form of spiritual practice. What’s the goal of spiritual practice? It’s for you to discover your fundamental nature. It’s so that you yourself can understand nature better, understand Dao better. An understanding of a blessed life, a blessed and healthy life. Now when we drink tea, as far as some people can see, it’s just steeping the tea leaves, it’s just practicing a few movements. Some people only see it as an outer form; they haven’t discovered what’s inside of it. This morning I got up and straightened my room, and started doing tea ceremony, started making tea, and I felt a lot this morning. No matter what a person does, they’re always cultivating their mind-body, calming their mind-body. When your mind-body can jieding, restrain itself and be meditative, then you naturally get wisdom. What is jieding? When your body doesn’t move, that’s jie, keeping the precepts, keeping restraint. When your mind doesn’t move, that’s ding, meditation. By means of jie you can get ding, and then you can get wisdom, which is an understanding of the Great Dao. This is the most basic method. That’s just that in our everyday lives, in all that we do, we’re always engaged in spiritual practice. The goal of this spiritual practice is to discover your fundamental nature, to really know your original self, your original face, which means unity with the Dao. It’s your true nature. The so-called original nature or fundamental nature is really your true nature. So everything that we do every day is like this. Now many people think desires and information from outside cover up their original nature. So how do you discover it? We have to use many different methods to practice. In a temple, we are practicing every day in our daily lives. Spiritual practice has two parts. One part is for your body. Mental and physical, spiritual practice is to resolve these two kinds of problems. What is the physical, it’s our bodies. We have to cultivate our bodies, so that they change. Mind is our thinking, our behavior, right? There are two different aspects. All methods of practice are to resolve our physical and mental problems，so that our mind-bodies are in greater harmony, in greater balance, healthier, more blessed. This is key. So we have to use many different kinds of methods for practice for different kinds of people and different kinds of problems, we have to use different kinds of practice. In any place, at any time, you can always engage in spiritual practice. This is what you can experience in everyday life. 


Chengdu, December 2009

Contact in Switzerland, Europe: marco.steiger@gmx.ch