The first female Taoist abbot in history

[GeneChing]

Is this correct? Wu is the first Taoist Abbess? I know there have been many significant women Taoists - Wudang had that centenarian that was really famous but her name escapes me at the moment (maybe I'll look it up later). And I know there have been Chinese Buddhist female Abbesses. But there's never been a female Taoist Abbess? That seems ironic since Buddhism was so misogynist in the beginning while Taoism touted the whole yin yang male female harmony schtick.

The first female Taoist abbot in history (http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2009-11/485507.html)
* Source: Global Times
* [15:47 November 16 2009]

On November 15, priestess Wu Chengzhen from Changchun Taoist Temple became the first female abbot in 1,800 years of Chinese Taoist history.

Born on January 14, 1957, in Xinzhou, Hubei province, Wu graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology with a Master's degree in philosophy. She is now served as a standing member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC) Hubei Provincial committee, Chairman of the Hubei Taoist Association, Chairman of the Wuhan Taoist Association, and abbot of Changchun Taoist Temple.

A ceremony was held Sunday attended by Qi Xiaofei, vice administrator of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, and Ren Farong, chairman of the Chinese Taoist Association.

According to the culture of Taoism, an abbot is the highest leader. The election of the abbot is very strict, as candidates should pass three big ordinations with a good standingreputation.

Since 2000, Wu has made great contributions to the society, fundraising nearly 4 billion yuan to for the poor and children who have dropped out of school.

Wu also facilitated many cultural exchanges, introducing Chinese Taoism to Southeast Asia and Europe.

[Zi Zheng]

I think her name is Li Cheng Yu. Pretty sure.

[DMK]

Remember the Old School Kungfu Movie;
Revenge of the Shogun Women. It was is 3-D . It was alright for that time . If you see it on youtube let me know.But it was a good women knugfu movie. It could be called Revenge Of The Shaolin Women

[GeneChing]

Interesting story. Click for pics.

'Sign of the times' (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-12/14/content_9171291.htm)
By Erik Nilsson and Guo Rui (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-14 09:06

Wu Chengzhen is the first principal abbess (Fang Zhang) of a Taoist temple in the religion's history.

The vigor of Wu Chengzhen's faith has made her an exception to nearly two millennia of Taoist clerical orthodoxy.

On Nov 15, her intense piety earned her an appointment as principal abbess (Fang Zhang) of Wuhan's Changchun Temple, making Wu, 52, the first woman to hold such an eminent position in China's only native archaic religion.

"I think the ordination of a woman to such a high rank is a sign of the times," she says.

"It won't change anything about my daily life, but inside, I feel happy and grateful and a little ashamed, because I should do more."

The abbess wraps her crossed legs in a peach-colored blanket as she sits on the bed of her dorm room in Renmin University of China in Beijing, where she's now studying. A brown sweater peaks out from beneath her dark blue robe and her bun pokes out of the center of a cylindrical Taoist cap.

Periodically, her eyelids droop and she retreats into da zuo (Taoist mediation) mid-conversation. Moments later, she snaps back from her trances, speaking lucidly and seeming to have heard everything said while in her daze.

Wu relates her new station to the ancient myth of the Eight Immortals, a tale revered by Taoists. One of the deities, He Xiangu (Lotus Immortal), was a woman.

"Taoism strengthens equality among all people," Wu says. "It's also more egalitarian toward women than other major religions."

Wu comes from a devout family and is the youngest of six children, named Wu Yuanzhen before she was given her religious name. During her middle school years, she immersed herself in the home libraries of her Christian, Buddhist and Taoist relatives.

'Sign of the times'

Wu, 52, was crowned Principal Abbess of Wuhan's Changchun Temple at a grand ceremony on Nov 15.

Her father was profoundly influenced by Confucian ethics, especially familial piety. When his mother fell ill at age 56, he hacked a chunk out of his humorous (the upper arm bone) with a knife for her to eat. He hoped such a grand gesture would move the gods to heal the woman.

Wu says it worked. Her grandmother immediately recovered and lived to the age of 87. The event is recorded in the Wu Family Genealogy kept by the government of Xinzhou, a county in Wuhan.

Wu followed an elder sister's example to commit herself to Taoism at age 23.

In an interview with the Wuhan-based Changjiang Times, Wu said she began her life at the Changchun Guan (guan refers to a Taoist temple), cooking, washing and planting vegetables.

She recalls that her master once told her to check if the water in a kettle had boiled. When she lifted the lid to look inside, the steam almost burned her face.

"My masters often scolded me: If I couldn't do anything, why did I leave the secular life?"

But she proved to be a persistent disciple - the only one of eight who remained after a year of training.

"Taoism focuses on optimism, cherishes life and deals directly with reality," she says.

But Wu accepts the supernatural in her conception of the corporeal. She claims to have seen dragons in Jilin province's Longtan Temple. She says the creatures swam in circles in the river while she and 25 believers stood on the banks communicating with the gods in June 2001.

"It wasn't one dragon, one time or one day. It was three dragons, three times and three days it's true; you can ask the local people."

She describes the legendary rulers of water as being several dozen meters long with white bellies. Upon their arrival, the waters stilled and the skies became sunny, she says.

"There are many things we don't know much about, but we can't say they don't exist," she says.

Wu claims to have also seen Taoist gods flying toward her clad in radiant attire. "I always feel L Dongbin (one of the Eight Immortals) by my side," she says.

"If the pantheon chooses me, I will persevere in cultivating myself to also become an immortal."

Wu says she saw the deities during da zuo, which she does for several hours a day.

Between prayers and meditation, she attends to her daily work for the temple. This includes cultural tasks, such as preaching and advocating Taoism - she has some 10,000 disciples from all walks of life - and "hard construction" tasks, such as building Taoist teahouses and restaurants in the temple, and planning a hospital and a museum in the coming decade.

"I want to create a place where people can feel Taoist culture in everything - the food, the buildings, the music, the medicine, the teahouses and the tai chi," she says.

"There's so much to do; it will require tens of millions of yuan."

Changchun Temple has in recent years donated more than 4 million yuan to help victims of disasters, such as the Sichuan earthquake, the blizzards in South China, Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan and the Indonesian tsunami. It has also contributed to building charitable Hope Schools for poor children in rural areas.

Wu disagrees with commercializing spirituality, as Shi Yongxin has done for the Shaolin Temple. She says she doesn't know much about the entrepreneurial monk, except that he cruises around in luxury cars when visiting Beijing.

The temple provides Wu, who has lived there in a 10-sq-m room for three decades, a 370-yuan monthly allowance.

She lifts her robe to reveal holes in her sweater and then slips off her 25-yuan shoes, exposing toes that stab through tears in her socks.

"It's funny, isn't it?" she says, giggling.

"What's on the outside doesn't matter. My happiness comes from my soul," she explains, pointing to her heart and then to her temple.

Her greatest source of joy is personal development, she says.

Wu is finishing her dissertation through a four-month seminar at Renmin University organized for 52 religious figures.

Because Wu, who is 52, doesn't know how to use a computer, she handwrote 24 pages of the paper and had her apprentice type it for her. The study examines Taoism's function in creating a harmonious society.

"There shouldn't be any nuclear weapons, war or pollution, because these aren't propitious to the world," she says, tapping the paper and chuckling.

"People should be more like water, because water can absorb and hold a lot of things."

In 2001, Wu earned her first graduate degree at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.

Her degrees are honorary, because she only finished high school before the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). After a brief stint as an accountant after graduation, she began self-study at the temple but received no other formal higher education.

She became a Zhu Chi (lower-ranking abbess) of the temple in 1995. This May, when the temple decided to choose a principal abbess, the leaders of all departments of the temple unanimously chose Wu.

All Chinese Taoist temples have Zhu Chi, but only the prominent ones have Fang Zhang.

Leaders from the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Chinese Taoist Association attended the grand ceremony at which Wu became the principal abbess.

Wu believes her new appointment will bring new tribulations.

She likens it to the heroes of the story Journey to the West, in which the pilgrims who received a divine calling to retrieve Buddhist scriptures from faraway lands faced a myriad of harrowing obstacles.

"If the gods chose me to do this, they'll place greater difficulties in my path," she says.

"But facing these will assist my self-refinement and make me a better Taoist."

[GeneChing]

I think her name is Li Cheng Yu. Pretty sure. Right you are, Zi Zheng. I just stumbled on this web article.


March 14, 2012
Grandmaster Li Cheng Yu’s secret of longevity for women (http://www.examiner.com/tai-chi-in-national/grandmaster-li-cheng-yu-s-secret-of-longevity-for-women?CID=examiner_alerts_article)
Violet Li
Tai Chi Examiner
http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/hash/5f/90/5f90e36e0db0b8d204a76aa38adf9a83.jpg

Grandmaster Li Cheng Yu was one of few female Daoist monks in China if not the only one. Born in 1885, she lived through the revolution that threw the Qing Dynasty off and ended the millennia old emperor ruling system in China, several civil wars, World War II, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the persecution on Taoists from the Chinese government. She almost died from Tuberculosis in her early 20’s. She endured hardships throughout her life. In her 90’s, she became crippled due to a severe fall on ice. But in her 110’s, black hair returned and grew among a full head of hair. Her eyesight was good enough to thread a needle. In her 110’s, her memory was sharp and even remembered visitor’s names from ten years ago. Her skin was said to be supple and beautiful even in her later days. On Feb 14, 2003, early in the morning she told her nephew and a close student to change her into a clean outfit. Afterwards, she did her usual meditation sitting with both legs double folded. Once her students returned from offering incense, they found that she had passed. In Taoist practice, Grandmaster Li transcended from the mundane world to nirvana at her own will at age 118-year.

Grandmaster Li Cheng Yu was a famous monk for her spiritual wisdom as well as her life nurturing principles and methods. She trained at least 5,000 students from 36 different countries. She was widely covered by the Chinese media. National Geographic included her in a documentary about longevity and Taoism. (See a video clip on the left-hand-side (http://www.examiner.com/tai-chi-in-national/grandmaster-li-cheng-yu-s-secret-of-longevity-for-women-video)).

Master Tseng Yun Xiang (aka Master Chen) went to Wudang at an early age to follow Grandmaster Li to learn the Wudang internal alchemy and healing arts. He later become her disciple and was also ordained as a 25th generation Longmen Taoist Priest. He was entrusted with Grandmaster Li’s secret Qigong exercise for women. Master Li immigrated to the U.S. in 1990 to promote Wudang Tai Chi and Taoism at Grandmaster Li’s request. Recently, he came to St. Louis to host “Tao and the Sacred Feminine” workshop on March 10, 2012.

Master Li shared Grandmaster Li’s female Qigong exercise during the workshop, which includes ten steps. Master Li said that to begin the exercise you needs to sit at the Taoist meditation position with legs folded and then follow the protocol in the below described sequence:

Place the left hand over the right hand and put them both in between breasts (or called Shang Chong in Chinese medicine). Slowly and gently knead in a clock-wise circular motion for 36 times.
Place the right hand on the right breast and the left hand on the left breast with Lao Gong (a Chinese pressure point, where a bent a middle figure touches the palm) contacting the nipples. Slowly and gently knead the breasts in a circular motion upwards and out for 36 times and then downward and out for 24 times. At this point, you would feel warmth going toward your back and travel through spine (or Du meridian) to the brain, and then traveling down to the area between the nipples (Shang Chong). Master Chen mentioned that women with weak kidneys may not feel much heat when they first practice but will improve as they practice more.
Use the intention to guide the heat from Shang Chong (the area between breasts) to Jiang Gong area, which is about 1.3 inches behind Shang Chong in the chest area. Keep the heat at Jiang Gong while breathing normally for 36 times. It is important to keep lips closed and breathe in and out through the nose.
Let go of the intensity and feel the heat descend into the kidneys. Guide the Qi circle clock-wise 36 times in the kidneys and reverse for 36 times. Afterwards, keep your mind at Ming Meng (or Life Gate, which is the area in the middle of two kidneys on the back) for 36 breaths.
Guide the Qi to the lower Dan Tian and then circle the Qi clock-wise in Dan Tian (in lower abdomens) slowly for 49 times then reverse for 49 times of quick circling.
Normally you should feel extreme heat at the tailbone (or Wei Lui in Chinese medicine). Contract anus and vagina quickly. Immediately pass the Qi through the spine or Du meridian to the upper Dan Tian in the head right behind the space between two eyebrows. You will imagine that you are inside an ocean and stay there for three minutes while breathing normal.
Guide the Qi down to Jiang Gong. Metaphorically, you will feel the earth floating underneath your body and morning dew sprinkling down. Swallow sweet nectar in the mouth all the way down to the lower Dan Tian.
Turn senses inwards and let go of all thoughts. Feel the body is empty or detached like a valley. Earth seems to disappear from underneath at this point. Feel cool mist; all of sudden, the mist vanishes. You can see the ocean floor crystal clear.
See the golden rays coming up from beneath while drizzles coming down. They both swirl around you. Then a bright full moon takes over and it rises and falls slowly. You will feel like waking up from a dream but feel your whole body gets re-set.
Scan your body from head to toe 3 to 6 times. Breathe normally while paying attention to Jiang Gong.

Afterwards, rub your hands together then use them wash your face figuratively. Rotate shoulders a few times. With the hands on the hips, shake your body lightly. Massage your legs and knees before getting up. Take 24 steps forward with toe touching the floor first then heel.

Master Chen said that this exercise is extremely beneficial for breast cancer survivors, women suffering from common female ailments, or menopause. But it is not suitable for women younger than 30-years old. You need to practice three times a day and always practice it at the same time each day. You can see huge health improvements in 100 days.

Besides exercise, Master Chen advised women to apply self-enlightenment techniques to liberate themselves. The important steps in self-enlightenment are self-respect, self-love, self-trust, and self-independence. Master Li said that many women feel that “I must give” and they guilt themselves often, which is harmful for health. He emphasized it is important for woman to be spiritually and mentally independent.

With his good humor and profound lecture, Master Li’s workshop was well received in St. Louis. You can click herefor more information or register for his workshops in other cities.