YCS Training
Richard Earl was given the YCS Training, and certified as a Level One Qigong Meditation Teacher in 2009. All the certified YCS Teachers progressively advance in the following areas:
Textual study sources include: Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard; Laozi, Analects, I Ching, Taoist Cannon, and Buddhist Philosophies.
Self-cultivation includes: Western modern and postmodern arts; Poetry of Tang and Song dynasties, calligraphy and literati painting, and Qin music.
Practices include: the art of tea, connoisseurship of fine arts and antiquity, bonsai, qigong meditation, and Taijiquan.
Lineage: History and Background
We have arrived in the 21st century with phenomenal accomplishments in technology, ecology, physiology, especially unifying insights and attempts of recent scientific, ideological, social and economic approaches to globalization, yet we still find ourselves in the same exasperating position: life is harsh, politics are dirty, and commerce is sordid. Our sense of disconcertment is called many things, but simply is the Unhappiness of Life. Life becomes a burden full of battles and it seems that all the battles-our conflicts, anxiety, pain, and despair-are undefeatable. As if we fight with our own shadow, our mind cannot dictate our body. Likewise, our body cannot defeat our mind, thus our spirit stays confused!
We can easily gain new information on the topic of how to overcome one’s conflicts and battles by browsing in our favorite bookstores, surfing online, or attending seminars of aptitudes. There is a myriad of approaches available today, from Hinduism to Buddhism, Tantra to Taoism, Yoga to Qi Gong and Tai Chi, and Transcendental Meditation to Self-help Advocates, consequently we find ourselves in an endless battles of ideas and concepts, as a result we are conferred with a synthesis of “Spiritual Alcoholism!”
The consequence of this Spiritual Alcoholism is that our mind has become delusional, and we have lost Knowledge in Information, and we lost Wisdom in Knowledge. Our knowledge now brings us closer to ignorance, and our ignorance brings us closer to death-our inability and unaffectedness. Where is the wisdom we have lost in our knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in our information? Where is the life we have lost in our living? We, in spite of everything, celebrate our synthesis. We assume we are garlanded with a genuine theory that is pragmatic, effective, and experiential rather than traditional, lineage-transmitted and disciplinary. Consequently the challenge and question remains: Can we break free from our delusional mind? Can we divest the thousands of years of traditions and practices from their original cultures, so our contemporary individual ingenuity can replace the ancient collective wisdom?
Foucault’s basic idea is that modernity is characterized by the self-contradictory and anthropocentric form of knowledge proper to a structurally overloaded subject. Jurgen Habermas explains that the overloaded subject is a “double” of Self, a finite Self (subject) transcends itself into the infinite. Habermas thus states: “In this way, the modern form of knowledge is determined by the unique dynamism of a will to truth for which any frustration is only a spur to the renewed production of knowledge. This will to truth, then, is for Foucault the key to the internal nexus between knowledge and power.”
Sinologist John Lagerwey says: “What will tomorrow bring? — it will bring nothing good if it denies the past.” Perhaps what we have missed is that we deny our past and our traditions. Perhaps it is time for us to learn from the past, to learn from some of the traditional forms of knowledge such as shi cheng or lineage teaching. With no English words akin in meaning to the Chinese words shi cheng, we usually explain it as “master’s lineage transmission.” Moreover, in the Chinese context, this expression refers to genealogy or the family history overlapped with consanguineous ties, and the parallels of fictive family kinship. Concerning Qigong and Tai Chi practices, and many other cultural practices, the “lineage” teaching indicates the genealogical line that is sustained by esoteric techniques what to be called the oral-transmission and physical empowerment.
A lineage is simply a way of life with teacher-student hierarchical order, often passed on and perfected by many great masters with their lifelong disciplinary practice and consistent self-cultivation. Lineage Transmissions are a fundamental part of the establishment of beliefs, thoughts, knowledge, and practices in a culture like China, Japan, Tibet, India and many other cultures. Each lineage exists as an individual unit of the cultural establishment that is equivalent to the modern Western idea of a school or university.
The Prince of Ning (1378-1448), the 17th son of the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), established YeYoung Lineage in 1428. He is known today by his contributions of invaluable volumes to the Chinese Classics. He devoted his life in the studies and practices of Chinese philosophy, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, history, poetry, plays, Qin music, and practices including Daoyin and Neidan, the art of tea, medicine, divination and numerology, and other subjects. The Prince of Ning’s Neidan and Daoyin teachings are collected in his book, Huorenxing (Enliven the Heart), in addition to his oral transmissions within the YeYoung Family. The original edition of Enliven the Heart can be viewed in the library of Beijing University today.
YeYoung Lineage has been passed on the recent YeYoung Family members: Wanrong also known as Qingji (1835-1900), father of Youhua, a Yellow Robe Knight of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911); Denke (1870-1938), a Taoist doctor, older brother of Youhua; and Youhua (1889-1976). Youhua lived to the full aspiration of cultivating a perfection of body-mind-spirit with high attainments through the end of the Qing dynasty, the Nationalist regime (1911-1949), and the Communist regime.
The current principle teacher Xiansheng YeYoung was born in China and raised and educated by his grandfather Youhua. At age 12 Xiansheng began Chen Family Style Taiji Quan studies and practice. As a teenager Xiansheng studied with the eminent Chinese art critic, Mr. Shui Tianzhong, and soon after taught as a professor at universities, and later immigrated to the USA in 1989. Xiansheng established YCS in 2000. With the help from Furen and Siyi, YCS has grown in studies and practices, and YCS has studied and practiced in growth. Located in northern California we are a center for cultural studies offering classes and online resources for scholarly study.