Looking for passage from book

[ghostexorcist]

Liang Shouyu's book Qigong Empowerment mentions the origin legend for "Dapeng Qigong." Unfortunately, I am unable to find the specific passage online like I have in the past. Is anyone with access to the book willing to transcribe the short paragraph for me? I recently purchased a back issue of KFM describing the style. I figure I can get some useful info in advance of its arrival.

Any descriptions of the legend online that people may find probably stem from what I have added to various articles on Wikipedia. I just need the actual passage for quoting in a paper.

[ghostexorcist]

Never mind, I found it. An admin can delete this thread if they like.

[GeneChing]

Not when I can do some guerrilla marketing.

Qigong Empowerment

Emei Dapeng Qigong-Mt. Emei's Incredible Qigong By Shou-Yu Liang & Wen-Ching Wu (2000 September)

Shou-Yu Liang - Journey from Sichuan by Wen-Ching Wu (2000 October)

Also did you see the demo of Wuji qigong that GM Liang did for our masters demo at Tiger Claw’s KungFuMagazine.com Championship II?

I'm now curious, ghostexorcist. Why are you researching Dapeng so much now?

[ghostexorcist]

Not when I can do some guerrilla marketing.

Qigong Empowerment

Emei Dapeng Qigong-Mt. Emei's Incredible Qigong By Shou-Yu Liang & Wen-Ching Wu (2000 September)

Shou-Yu Liang - Journey from Sichuan by Wen-Ching Wu (2000 October)

Also did you see the demo of Wuji qigong that GM Liang did for our masters demo at Tiger Claw’s KungFuMagazine.com Championship II?

I'm now curious, ghostexorcist. Why are you researching Dapeng so much now?

Thanks for the links to all of the above stuff.

I am currently researching literary connections between the Monkey King and Song General Yue Fei. I know some people may think there is no connection at all, but there is more than what one would think. The snowball that is my research has rolled into religious and martial arts circles as well, hence my interest in Dapeng Qigong.

The novel that initially peaked my interest is called Supplement to the Journey to the West (西游补, 1640). In the novel, the Monkey King fights a Fish Demon who traps him a magical tower of mirrors. Each mirror is a gateway to different places and times in other universes. In one instance, he travels to the Song Dynasty and judges the recently deceased spirit of Qin Hui as the adjunct King of Hell. He later takes Yue Fei as his third master (apart from Subhuti and Xuanzang). The notion of Qin's torture in hell was borrowed from a long line of earlier novels and short stories about Yue Fei. An almost identical scene about the torture of Qin (sans the Monkey King) appears in Yue Fei’s popular folklore biography The Story of Yue Fei (说岳全传, 1684).

The Story of Yue Fei casts Yue as a reincarnation of the celestial Bird Garuda. The author, Qian Cai, made the connection because of the similarities in their names. Yue’s historical style name was Pengju (鵬舉). Garuda’s Chinese name is Great Peng, the Golden-Winged Illumination King (大鵬金翅明王). The Story of Yue Fei portrays Garuda as a powerful, short-tempered beast sitting ontop of the Buddha’s throne. The Enlightened One exiles him from heaven for killing an anthropomorphic representation of a star constellation. Journey to the West (西游记, 1592) gives a folk origin for how Garuda comes to hold this position. Called the “Roc of Ten Thousand Miles of Clouds,” the bird is a literal grandson of the original primordial forces which created the universe and a spiritual uncle of the Buddha himself. On earth, this bird is a man-eating demon that has terrorized lands west of China for centuries. It plots with two other demons (a lion and an elephant) to kidnap and eat Xuanzang. But because the bird is too powerful to conquer on his own, the Monkey King must seek help in the Western Paradise of India. The Buddha tricks the bird into thinking his halo is a raw piece of meat. When he latches on to it, the Buddha traps him and destroys his wings. This is why he sits above the Buddha’s throne.

Anyway, practitioners of Dapeng Qigong have taken note of this connection and mixed bits from both novels to create their origin legend. Liang Shouyu’s book states:

“[A] Dapeng is a great big bird that lived in ancient china. Legend has it, that Dapeng was the guardian that stayed above the head of the first Buddha, Sakymuni. Dapeng could get rid of all evil in any area. Even the Monkey King was no match for it. During the Song Dynasty the government was corrupt and foreigners were constantly invading China. Sakyamuni sent Dapeng down to earth to protect China. Dapeng descended to earth and was born as Yue Fei.” (Liang, Qigong Empowerment, p. ?)

I read about this style of Qigong years ago, but I just now remembered it when I found literary connections between Monkey and Yue.

There are a few styles of martial arts with moves called “Great Peng spreading its wings.” The Taoist-based Zhuangzi (庄子, c. 4th cen. BCE) has a chapter devoted to the Peng. It is said to be able to fly thousands of miles with each flap of its wings, pushing clouds apart along the way. This is the origin of Peng’s moniker in Journey to the West. There are more connections to Buddhist culture as well, but I won't go into this.

Although I did not originally set out to do so, I have found a good example of how religion, folklore, and literature can influence martial arts legends.