As China is more recognized today, the traditional Chinese cultural practices, such as Tai Chi, Qi Gong, the art of tea, calligraphy and so on, also are more noticed by the world. However, what is not quite well understood is that these practices are all but one practice. It is impossible to even think that a great Tai Chi practitioner does not know calligraphy or drink good tea, or a great Chinese Qin music practitioner does not know Qi Gong or I Ching.
YeYoung Culture Studies (YCS) is a school of traditional Chinese culture where students study this one-practice. Our students begin their training with Tai Chi the martial art, or Qi Gong meditation. The advanced students broaden their study to include calligraphy, music, art, poetry, and the art of tea. We also travel to different parts of the world, teaching at Universities, health fairs, and to organized groups of health professionals as well as those who are interested in learning more about how this type of work can improve their life. Grand Master YeYoung, the founder of YCS has been teaching in the United States since year 2000, and continues to share his family lineage based teachings through classes, seminars, lectures, and workshops. Our hope is to use this blog as a way to share information with you about what happens here at YCS, by posting current pieces of lectures, pictures of events, writings, and poetry that take place at YCS.
Again, welcome to what aims to be your inside peek into what YCS is all about!
Welcome to the YeYoung Culture Studies Blog!
Chinese Fables- Buying Shoes
Painting by Xiang YeYoung
Buying Shoes
(Zhen Ren Mai Lu)
A man was ready to go buy a pair of shoes, but he wasn’t sure of his size. After taking time to measure his feet and write his size down on a piece of paper, he was ready to go to the market to find shoes. When he found the shoes at the market he realized that he had forgotten his measurements. He went home to fetch the paper, but when he returned the market was closed. His friend asked him, “Why didn’t you just try the shoes on?” To which he responded, “I believe the measurement more than myself.
Translation by Xiang YeYoung and Li
Wild China-BBC
Hello! We have come across a great series from BBC called Wild China. This show encompasses people and culture, their relationship to nature and animals, and the vastly different ways people live in China from traditional to modern. Wild China is a great show that spectacularly recorded vast areas of China. Thanks BBC!
Here is a link to watch clips from the BBC documentary on Google Video: Wild China (BBC documentary series)
Chinese Fables- Stealing the bell
Painting by Xiang YeYoung
Cover Your Ears So No One Will Hear
(Yan Er Dao Zhong)
A man was walking by an abandoned house when he came upon a wonderful large bronze bell that he decided to steal. He knew he would have to take the bell in pieces in order to move it because it was so heavy. This was going to be too noisy a job to do without getting caught, so he thought he should use earplugs. The thief covered his ears thinking that if he could not hear the bell, no one else could either.
From Lu’s Annuals (475-221 BC)
Translation by Xiang YeYoung and Li Evon
Grand Master YeYoung’s 49th Birthday Celebration
Grand Master YeYoung recently celebrated his 49th birthday and about 30 of his students threw him a birthday party. Master has many talented students, and Debby happens to be a talented dessert chef. She crafted a cake for Master’s birthday, complete with two teapots on top and Chinese characters skillfully written in frosting by her daughter Nicole and herself spelling out their gratitude for Masters help, and wishes for a happy birthday. This was no easy task, for they have zero experience with writing Chinese characters, but it was well done, and the cake tasted fantastic.
Master gave a speech thanking every one of his students, for without them he would not be who he is. I am sure that every student was humbled by his gracious appreciation, and in fact we all know that it is we, who should be thanking him. We should be thanking him for putting up with our shenanigans, and still moving us forward like a bullet train towards happiness and peace. Perhaps now is the best time for us to take his advice and finally let go of our egos. Doing this seems like we are giving something up, like sacrificing an arm or surrendering to the evil opponent. When in fact what you are doing is opening yourself up to the possibility (stop the presses for this may actually be true) that you can live a happy peaceful life every day.
Let us ask our selves as his students, what do you suppose his mission is in doing this type of work? Is he looking to make our lives worse? Would we continue to pay him for that!? If you remain his student without making much progress, you need only look to yourself, for the power to change is with in you, but with out a teacher, when you let go there will be no one there to guide you. So, fear not, because if you are a student of Master YeYoung then you are in for a treat. There is no other teacher like him, for usually someone of his caliber is not going to be dealing with people on an individual basis, with specific guidelines catered to your specific needs. For example, the Tao De Jing may be a great book and all, but when your life is going to pieces is that book going to help you put it back together? Can you call Lao Zi up and tell him that you just had a fight with your spouse and you feel like you’re in hell? But you can call Master. Anytime. Really, he’s that sort of teacher. And if you follow his advice you will get out of that hole your in. And you might be happier at home. And you might get a raise! And you might get healthier and have less pain. For that is the goal of this work. Perhaps some of you wanted super powers like levitation, or abilities to control other people, or astral projection, or some other crazy idea. But what you get with Master is a reality check. Cold hard facts about what you are doing to sabotage yourself. And then you slowly get yourself out.
And so, what possible birthday present could you get to show appreciation for the person who is helping pull you out of hell? Well, perhaps gratitude is where you begin. And then you continue on your path with a more humble mindset. And you allow yourself the possibility that you are wrong, and he is right. Then we can have a good time. And have cake and drink tea too.
Students of Master YeYoung at his Birthday Celebration. Thanks to Tom and Michael for making tea in their elegant Yixing teapots.
Debby and her daughter Nicole decorated this incredibly thoughtful and meaningful cake. The teapot on the right has a white crane on it to symbolize longevity.
Nicole decorated this teapot, and figured out by herself how to write "thank you for everything". Mrs. YeYoung said Nicole writes characters better than she did when she was learning how to write, Master said he couldn't tell a non-Chinese wrote it.
Master YeYoung with two of his students. Kyle, Master’s youngest student, has already Master’s a high skill level in Tai Chi. The beautiful Nicole is on the right.
For Master’s 49th Birthday
Rustling bamboo and rocks are reflected in the pond
where koi glide,
Emerald grass, quiet living room, the door is silent.
Buddhist way or Taoist way all pacify the world,
Only meditation frees one from the Six Realms.
The thousand year-old Tang and Song tea bowls, and scrolls,
Idly we are, with full teapots, and full tea bowls.
Wives provide fine foods with great kindness,
In the constant awakenings,
let’s have 49 more birthday celebrations.
Written by Mrs. Xiang YeYoungInner Space Lecture Series - Part Three
The Inner Space: Part Three
In different cultures, people deal with the gap between the inner space and the outer space in different ways. Confucius proposed the Chinese way some 2500 years ago. He summed up ancient Chinese wisdom, and suggested that there should be a specific family structure and a social structure everybody follows, besides doing their individual inner work. The structures are a series of orders that set the human relationships and communities as the first concern. Instead of fighting your way through to get your inner space connected with the outer space like the Westerner normally does, Confucius teaches the art of the Middle Way—the balance between individual and the mass—essentially individual “subjectively balances” oneself with the structures, from personal order, family order, to social order etc. This is how the Chinese has attempted to dissolve the battle between the inner space and the outer space. It may artificially appear to be that Children follow parents, students follow teachers, and ministers follow emperors without much individual right and choice.
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Inner Space Lecture Series - Part Two
The Inner Space: Part Two
If we look at the last 5000 years of our history as history—not the history of the great chains of great events, or the ideas of events—if we only take a minute-break from our focusing on the eventful, we may find ourselves still in the exactly same, somewhat exasperating position: we seem to have a hard time to manage the simplest things right—eat, sleep, and poop!
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Inner Space Lecture Series - Part One
The Inner Space: Part One
This book is called the Decline of the West, written by the German philosopher and historian Oswald Spenglar (1880-1936). I picked up this book almost 20 years ago when I lived in San Francisco. I was drawn by the title and wondering: everything is so great what is declining? In the last few weeks, I started reading it again.
Spenglar proposed two destiny ideas for the first time: the Apollonian of the classical world and Faustian of the modern world in the West. Apollo is variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, archery, medicine, healing and plague, music, poetry, and arts etc. Whereas Faust, a highly successful scholar, is unsatisfied, and makes a deal with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.
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Here are three excerpts from recent lectures given by Master YeYoung
“You just tell me I am right”
There is something interesting about Westerners looking for a teacher—they have a very strange understanding of it. When they are looking for a teacher, they are looking for a teacher to give them more ideas and concepts—that’s all they want. They don’t want the teacher to give them any practical help. Although they always say that they want the help to improve their life and change their situation- that’s not true. What they really want is some sort of intellectual stimulation to add to what they were thinking to prove themselves always right. The thing is, you get close in their life, you look at them and you say hey, you are fighting with your husband or wife everyday and you can’t stop you may divorce, but when you get married again, you continue. You are trying to hide the illness that you have, you can’t tell anybody, you are losing money… all these are the problems that are the great obstacles in your spiritual development. You ask the teacher for help, or you want to be enlightened, and you want to be happier. How can you? You drag on the thing- all your egotistic denial- but you don’t want to touch it, you don’t want to deal with it, you cover it up and hide it away. What is going to happen? Don’t you see that? It is THOSE THINGS that make you who you really are. It is not your status, title, or your money, definitely not who you think you are. It is not because you haven’t met the Dalai Lama, or haven’t whatever—got the secret or the cure so that you are in the situation, and you can’t change the situation. That’s not what it is at all, it is you and your EGO and DENIAL hold you back and make who you are now.
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Quotes from Master YeYoung
The Tao that can be spoken is not the constant Tao, the Path that can be walked on is not the constant Path, the Tao is the Flow. If you follow the Tao, everything follows you. If you follow the Self, you will follow everything but the Self. Your teacher who you take as a true teacher walks you on the Path and finds the Flow of the Tao for you.