A Study On Ma Yu's Theory Of Quanzhen

Ma Yu (1123-1183), whose original name is Cong Yi, with Yi-fu as his courtesy name, was born in Ninghai, Shandong (now Mouping, Yantai in Shandong Province). In 1168, at the age of 46, inspired by Wang Chong-yang's preaching, Ma Yu abandoned his secular life, converted to Taoism, and was given the name Yu, together with titles including Xuan Bao and Danyang Zi. Ma Yu is considered the head of the seven masters of Quanzhen Sect in the history of Chinese Taoism, and was in charge of the second-generation of the Quanzhen Taoist Sect. By inheriting and refining Wang Chongyang's thoughts, he has made great contribution to the development of Taoism.The Quanzhen sect laid great emphasis on the application of literature in converting disciples and followers. Ma Yu, with his great talent in literature, inherited this tradition. He composed a large body of poetry. By analyzing his works, we can also understand Ma Yu and interpret his profound philosophy. By putting Ma Yu against the historical background, and based on the interpretation of his poems and quotations, this dissertation attempts to focus on the interpretation of Ma Yu's Taoist philosophy, namely the philosophy of inner alchemy proposed by Wang Chongyang, which is characterized by the ideas of cultivation of both Xing and Ming, revealing the Xing by clarifying the Heart, and integration of the three religions.The dissertation also tries to analyze his thoughts of education and ethics, and tries to objectively and fairly evaluate the status and contributions of him in the history of Quanzhen Sect.Wang Chongyang passed away soon after the foundation of Quanzhen Sect, leaving the responsibility of development of the Sect on the Seven Masters. As the only Master acquiring Tao by then and the second Head of Quanzhen Sect, Ma Yu became the mainstay among the seven masters. Ma Yu lived up to Wang Chongyang's expectation and proved to be a qualified successor to him. On the basis of Wang Chongyang's theory of Inner Alchemy featured by Cultivation of both Xing and Ming, Priority of Xing to Ming and Revealing the Xing by Clarifying the Heart, Ma Yu integrated Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, established the theoretical system of Heart and Xing of Quanzhen thought of Inner Alchemy characterized by seclusion, thus set up the overall style and feature of Quanzhen cultivation and made great contribution to the development of the theory of Hear and Xing of Quanzhen Sect.The Introduction expounds the goal, methodology and significance of the study of the dissertation. By summarizing and analyzing the previous researches on Ma Yu, it points out the lack of profundity and breadth in the present scholarship of the thoughts of Ma Yu. The originality of this dissertation is to carry out an in-depth analysis of his thoughts.The First Chapter describes the experience of Ma Yu in pursuing Tao. Influenced by the belief in immortals in his hometown, Ma Yu started to have ambitions of becoming an immortal since his early years. Under the rein of foreign rulers in the Jin dynasty, Han people seldom had access to positions in the government. So Ma Yu abandoned the idea of becoming an official in the government, and started to pursue the philosophical values, In addition, his father and elder brother all died very young, and he was also told that he could not live beyond the age of 49. These facts made him think more on life and death, and determined to find ways to the truths of life, and eventually was converted under Wang Chongyang's enlightenment at the age of 46. Since then he managed to get rid of the chores of secular life, and started to pursue Tao with great concentration. After Ma Yu's conversion to Taoism, he followed Wang Chongyang in Shandong, and later went to Western China with other followers including Qiu Chuji, Liu Changsheng, Tan Chuduan, etc. Unfortunately their master Wang Chongyang died halfway, when among the disciples only Ma Yu was fully enlightened, so it was his duty to spread his Master's thoughts. They buried Wang Chongyang at his hometown Liujiang village in Shanxi, and practiced Quanzhen Taoism beside the tomb for three years. Later, taking Liujiang village as the center, Ma Yu worked hard to spread Wang Chongyang's thoughts and expand Quanzhen's impact by teaching disciples. Then he returned to Shandong and continued the missionary work. Within just a few decades, Quanzhen sect, a new Taoist faction, has leaped forward and become one of the two dominating sects of Taoism in China. Ma Yu has paid enormous contribution to this achievement.The Second Chapter describes the characteristics of Ma Yu's thoughts of integrating three religions. This has been identified as an important source of ideas for Quanzhen sect--the reformists of the Taoists. Based on Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's idea that "the Tao (Way) follows Xing", Ma Yu proposed the view that Taoists should pursue immortality through whole truth. He also borrowed ideas from Buddhism and Confucianism, and advocated that the three religions should exist in harmony when he built up the theoretical framework of the Quanzhen sect. On elaborating the theory of Xing and Ming, he accepted the Buddhist concept of Six Samsara to emphasize the limitation of life and cruelty of Infernal Space, negated physical pleasures while instructing people to pursue a liberation of both spirit and body. On the basis of the ontology of True Xing he set up the theory of immortality integrating the concepts of Immortal and Buddha which is featured by the cultivation of both Xing and Ming with the priority of Xing to Ming. On personal cultivation, Ma Yu combined the Zen theory of Revealing Xing through Clarifying Xi, the method of Meditation and the Taoist theory of Seclusion, thus inheriting and developing Wang Chongyang's thoughts of Cultivation and Healthcare by Revealing Xing and Xin characterized by the integration of Taoism and Zen. In religious ethics, he borrowed the Confucian concepts of Zhong and Xiao, Ren and Love to constitute the content of External Cultivation, advocated the Buddhist asceticism, drew up rule and regulations to principle Taoist disciples, thus established his ethic theory of asceticism integrating elements of the three religions.The Third Chapter expounds Ma Yu's formulation of the ontological theory of True Xing and his theory of Xing and Ming featured by Cultivation of both Xing and Ming with the Priority of Xing to Ming. He replaced the Taoist theory of Chengfu with the Buddhist Transmigration, proposed that the secular life and society are the abyss of misery and that desires such as love and greed are the evil source of human misery of transmigration. He instructed people to see through the vanity of honor and wealth, to abandon desires of alcoholism, sex, avarice and arrogance, and appealed people to remove from the harmful occasions that led them to misery. Ma Yu regarded Tao as the highest philosophical category, which is a result of combining Lao Zi's Taoist theory and the theory of Qi of Han Dynasty. He used True Xing to refer to Tao and developed his ontology of True Xing. On the relationship of Xing and Ming, Ma Yu inherited Wang Chongyang's thought of Cultivation of Xing and Ming, emphasized the priority of Xing to Ming and the cultivation of Xing. He regarded the relationship of Xing and Ming as that of Ti and Yong, with Xing as the Ti and Ming as the Yong. Through a comparative analysis of the theories of Xing and Ming of Wang Chongyang, Ma Yu and Qiu Chuji, we can see the theoretical inclination of priority of Xing to Ming of Quanzhen Sect, beginning from Cultivation of Xing and Ming, to Priority of Xing to Ming and Theory of Xing without Ming.The Fourth Chapter analyses Ma Yu's theory of Alchemy and Cultivation featured by Seclusion and Inactivity and elaborates his theory of Knowledge of Xin and Xing, theory of Seclusion and Inactivity, and theory of Cultivation of both Gong and Xing. First of all, he categorized Xin into Xin of the secular world and the Xin of seclusion, e.g. personal Xin vs. ontological Xin, or bodyly Xin vs. True Xin. Secondly, he believed that only by cultivation of Xin, replacing Xin of Secular World with Xin of Seclusion can Tao be revealed. Thirdly, in the specific cultivation process, in order to convert the Xin of Secular World to the Xin of Seclusion and reveal the Tao, the man must go through the intermediary steps of refining Qi and Spirit. Ma Yu summed up the process of Taoism enlightenment and pursuing immortality into two characters--Qing and Jing (the state of seclusion). In his view, being pure and quiet is the basic characteristics of Tao, as well as the basic method for inner training. In his view, Qing is the basic characteristics of astronomical phenomena, while Jing (or being static) is the basic characteristics of the things on the Earth. The two features combined is a symbol of heaven and earth. Due to the influences of Confucian thought of Ru Shi (social participation) and the thought of salvation of the world of Mahayana Buddhism, Ma Yu emphasized the function of balance of Gong and Action in the process of cultivation of Tao. He advocated genuine Gong and Action for universal salvation with the priority of others over self, which greatly changed the spiritual features of the traditional Taoist preference of individual cultivation to salvation of the world and paved the way for Quanzhen Sect of Taoism to spread. On the basis of Ma Yu's thoughts, Hai Datong, Qiu Chuji, Yin Zhiping and Wang Zhijin went further to perfect the Quanzhen theory of Alchemy and Cultivation of Xin and Xing.The Fifth Chapter summarizes Ma Yu's religious ethical thought with the ideas of benefiting others at the expense of oneself, pursuing truth and removing from the false, treating others with a forgiving heart and refraining from killing as the core. He deemed a genuine attitude as a necessary step to immortality.The Sixth Chapter discusses Ma Yu's preaching methods. The main feature of his preaching is that he believed in the equality of all sentient beings and individualized teaching methods. As for the specific means, he used poetry, personal examples and verbal instructions, miracles and supernatural events, and Skeleton view.Finally, the dissertation summarizes Ma Yu's historical contributions to the development of Taoism. Ma Yu was the first to publish the writings of Wang Chongyang. This helped spread his ideas and expand the social impact of Quanzhen sect. Ma Yu himself also composed a lot of poems to preach and advise the people. He also established a large number of Taoism temples, so that the size of Quanzhen sect achieved great development bother in terms of the number of disciples and the temples. Most importantly, Ma Yu is a key figure in inheriting Wang Chongyang's thoughts and promoting it to the greater scale and higher level. In particular, his thoughts of the unifying religious training with action has been disseminated by others and ushered new ideas in the development of Taoism. For emample, Hao Datong and Wang Zhijin developed from his idea of controlling the mind with mind into the thoughts of unifying Taoism with Buddhism and controlling the mind with the environment. While along the outside practice, Qiu Chuji, Yin Zhiping, and others developed thoughts of practicing Confucianism outside and following Taoism practice inside, and the ideological unity of religious training and action.Later, Li Daochun, Chen Zhixu merged the thoughts of both the north and south sects, unified Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, thus promoted the Quanzhen Taoist theory of the nature and mind to a new level.It is precisely because of the tireless and vigorous missionary work of Ma Yu, that Quanzhen sect of Taoism achieved great development in the Jin and Yuan dynasties.