緣分
Destiny
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Destiny [1] [yuan fen 缘分] is a vast concept in China, which is reflected in the astonishing number of words in the Chinese language[2]. Li Shifu once elucidated that:
三分天注定七分靠打拼。
Three parts are destined by the Heavens,
Seven parts rest on one’s [own] struggle.
This above sentence is about fortune [yun shi运势]. It could also be switched around insinuating that seven parts, seventy percent, are determined by Heaven. Destiny could be compared to a seed, which needs water, sunlight and soil. If it is a soybean seed, it cannot become corn, therefore the majority is fixed by Heaven. This notion could also be discussed from the angle of Pre-Heaven and Post-Heaven terms. One could be reminded of a common
Chinese saying:
种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆。
Sowing watermelons, [one will] reap watermelons.
Sowing beans, [one will] reap beans.
To complicate matters further destiny can be subdivided into the Heavenly Destiny [天缘], the Earthly Destiny [地缘], Humanly Destiny [人缘], Spirit Destiny [神缘] and the Ghost Destiny [鬼缘]. Fabrizio Pregadio in his paper Seeking Immortality in the Baopu zi nei pian [3] furthermore elaborates that:
Whether one does or does not attain the status of “sage” in any particular pursuit is owed to destiny. Ge Hong maintains that individual fate, including the predestination for immortality, is something received as a “natural endowment” (ziran suo bing自然所禀 ) in accordance with the star (or “asterism, constellation,” xiu 宿) under which one is conceived.
In contrast Lizhu and Na in Resurgence of Indigenous Religion in China point out that:
This ancient belief in ming yun [命运] should be understood in two aspects: ming (命) as the given status of personal destiny and yun (运) as the changing circumstances and individual choices. The combination of these two aspects into ming yun as personal destiny keeps life open-ended. For the Chinese, as for people of many other cultures, a person’s destiny is seen as both fixed and flexible.
In Li Shifu’s teaching the following rule applies to cultivation:
性有责我。命假师传。
One’s nature depends on yourself.
Life-Destiny makes use of your teacher’s transmissions.
Lastly to provide a Confucian perspective it is warranted to quote Wang Fengyi [王凤仪] from his《Discourse on Transforming Inner Nature》[4][hua xing tan 化性谈]:
人有三命, 一天命、二宿命、三阴命。
Humans have three Life-Destinies:
One, Heavenly Destiny;
Two, Karmic Destiny;
Three, Yin Destiny.
[1] A paper which delves deeper into this matter is Isabel Heger‘s 《The Meaning and Functions of the Concept of
Yuanfen 缘分 in Contemporary China》.
[2] Yuan Fen [缘分] , Ming Yun [命运], Ding Shu [定数], Ding Qi [气数], Tian Ming [天命] and Yun Shi [运势] to name a few. The author has decided to leave those terms untranslated, as doing justice to their subtleties goes beyond the scope of this article.
[3] More information about the pre-destined aspect of Destiny can be found in Fabrizio Pregadio’s paper《Seeking
Immortality in the Baopu zi nei pian》. Free download on academia.edu
[4] Published in English by Purple Cloud Press.
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Post-Scriptum: This article will appear in the appendix of Purple Cloud Press’ forthcoming publication of 《The 49 Barriers of Daoist Cultivation》 by Xing De, a manual for refining Inner Nature based on Liu Yiming’s 50 Barriers
