Saints & Sages Part VIII: 刘一明 Liu Yiming (1734 – 1821)

Saints & Sages Part VIII:
刘一明
Liu Yiming
(1734 – 1821)
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生不知來處，生的事大；死不知去處，死的事大。遍塵世人，來固糊塗，死亦糊塗，所以輪回不息，常入惡趣，真可痛惜。

《會心內集卷下》

[One] does not know which place [one] is born from, [yet] the issue of birth is [rather] great; [One] does not know which place [one] goes to [after] death, [yet] the issue of death is [rather] great. Everywhere the people of the dusty world, ever since consolidating [their] confusion, also die confused. Therefore the Wheel of Return does not cease. That [they] frequently enter wicked interests is truly lamentable.

《Internal Collection of Meeting of Heart-Minds》

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Liu Yi Ming is a Qing Dynasty famous Internal Alchemist. His appellation is Awakening to the Primordial [悟元子], while his other name is Simple and Unadorned Idler [1] [ 素朴散人]. He was a native from Shan Xi province, Ping Yang Prefecture Qu Wo County [平阳府曲沃县] in present Shan Xi province, Wen Xi County [闻喜县] and the eleventh generation transmitter Dragon Gate Sect [龙门派]. Within《Internal Collection of Meeting of Heart-Minds》[hui xin nei ji会心内集] it is recounted in its own words:

十七歲身得重病，百藥不效。次年赴甘省南安養病，愈醫愈重，當年所學，百無一用，直至臥床不起。幸喜真人賜方，沉痾盡除，死裡逃生，如在輪迴走了一遭，可懼可怕。

When he was seventeen years old [fifteenth year in the reign of Qian Long -1750), his body contracted a severe illness; [and] the Hundred Medicines had no effect. The next year he rushed to Nan An City [南安] in Gan Su province to recuperate from his illness. the more he received healing. the more severe [his illness] became. That which he had studied during those years, not even one in a hundred was of use, [it progressed] directly to the point of him being bedridden and [unable] to get up. He was lucky to meet a Realized One to be granted a prescription, [and] the severe and lingering illness completely abated. He escaped alive [from] within death. [It was] as if he had walked one round in the Wheel of Return – certainly frightful, certainly dreadful.
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He travelled far to inquire about the Dao at the age of nineteen [and] at twenty-two he meet the elder Kan Gu [龛谷] in Yu Zhong [榆中], present day belonging to Gan Su province. He received internal alchemy secret transmissions, and followed him as his master. Thereafter, in order to seek to consult, verify and validate [the teachings], he lived in the capital of the country for four years, two years in Henan, one year in Yao Du [尧都], present day Shan Xi province Lin Fen [山西临汾] prefecture Nan Jiu Ping Yang [南旧平阳] County, three years in Xi Tai [西秦], present day Gan Su province Jing Yuan [靖远]County, and he was moving to and fro for four years. In those thirteen years, there was none of the scripture books of the Three Teachings [2] [san jiao 三教], which he did not appreciate in detail. However, he was in a place of doubts and difficulty, [since] overall they had not been elucidated.

In the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Qian Long [乾隆]thirty-seven years again he again wandered and furthermore encountered the Old Man of Immortal Lingering [xian liu zhang ren 仙留丈人], who made pointers to the scriptures – thirteen years of a maze of doubts started being explained and so on. The later half of his life he continuously resided hidden in Gan Su province, in Yu Zhong County, Mount Qi Yun [栖云山] and Mount Xing Long [兴隆山] to cultivate the Dao, erect altars, pass on the religious teachings, write books and to establish his theories, becoming quite influential for the Complete Realization Dragon Gate Sect Daoists in the belt around Shan Xi [山西 ], Shan Xi [陕西], Gan Su, An Ning.
After Liu Yi Ming sat upright and transformed [3] in the founding year of the reign of emperor Dao Guang [道光], straight and after transforming, he was laid to rest on Mount Xing Feng’s Divine Pagoda [灵塔], Tang Lian [唐琏], a disciple of Liu Yi Ming wrote in regular script 《Pagoda Engravings to Praise the Gracious Master Old Man Liu》[恩师刘老夫子赞并塔铭] in order to commemorate his master. His utilizes the language and words of the Daoist philosophy to praise Liu Yi Ming’s lifetime of explicating and propagating Daoism as well as putting them into practice.

Liu Yi Ming’s major extant works are all contained within the《Twelve Kinds of Books on the Dao》 [道書十二種], such as 《Breaking Doubts on the Language of the Images》 [象言破疑], 《Differentiations of the Difficulties of Cultivating the Truth》 [修真辩难], 《Further Differentiations of Cultivating the Dao》[修真后辨], 《Records on Awakening to the Dao》 [悟道录] ,《Original Purport of the the Journey to the West》[i 西游记原旨],《Internal Collection of Meeting of Heart-Minds》[会心内集], 《Scripture of Passing through the Barriers》[4] [ 通关文], as well as《Explications of the Truth of the Book of Changes》[周易阐真] and《Explications of the Truth of Confucius’ Book of Changes》[孔易阐真]. Moreover he also published a medical treatise on eye disorders, titled《Sand-Swelling Ophthalmology》[sha zhang yan ke沙胀眼科].

[1] The Encyclopedia of Taoism translates Liu Yi Ming’s appellation as Vagabond in Simplicity.
[2] The Three Teachings are namely Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism
[3] Transformation is the equivalent of ascension.
[4] Purple Cloud Press forthcoming.
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Post-Scriptum:
The full article will appear in the appendix of Purple Cloud Press’ forthcoming publication of 《The 49 Barriers of the Cultivation of the Dao》 by Xing De, a manual for refining one’s Inner Nature based on Liu Yiming’s 50 Barriers.