by Brian Griffith
In longstanding tradition, many Daoists held it necessary, or at least helpful, that spiritual teachers and students should be of the opposite sex. So in Daoist writing, we commonly find female immortals serving as spiritual guides for men, with male immortals teaching women. Some legends say the Yellow Emperor sought wisdom from “the Dark Lady,” on Tai mountain. Then Emperor Yu gained instruction on coping with floods from, “The Lady of Flowers and Clouds,” on Wushan. The Daoist master Yang Xi (300s CE) claimed to receive his Shangqing (Highest Clarity) teachings in visions from Wei Huacun, who was the “Primordial Goddess of the Southern Ultimate” (Chan, 1990, 43). Yang’s visions were clearly erotic despite the value he placed on outward chastity in Shanqing Daoism. Wang Wenqing, founder of the Five Thunders sect of Daoism (1100s CE) was guided to his Thunder Texts by an old lady, who appeared in a mountainside hut and told him “I have no surname” (Hymes, 1996, 63). In these and many other cases, a relationship with a holy woman was reportedly essential to a great man’s wisdom.
Such master-disciple relationships could be highly amorous. And the whole shamanic tradition of contacting deities involved ecstatic communion of spirits. As Henri Maspero put it, “It was the beauty of the sorceress which attracted the god and made him choose her” (1978, 117). The term lingbao, for spirit possession, was a compound of words for “treasure” and “sacred spirit”. Ling was a masculine term, and bao was feminine. It was a word of sexual connotation (Robinet, 1997, 149–150). The popular poetry of Tang times (618–906 CE) gives numerous accounts of love affairs between transcendent teachers and disciples. In one poem, a man named Dongfang Shuo follows a strange woman known as Refined Master Jiao to her hut in a mountain retreat. There, she reveals herself as an intoxicating beauty, glorious as Dante’s Beatrice. Dong vows to inscribe her teachings on his bones if she will instruct him. And contrary to patriarchal conventions, the holy women in these numerous tales are portrayed choosing male students, initiating relationships, and leading spiritual lineages. (Cahill, 1993, 226; Bokenkamp, 1996, 169) Another Tang dynasty Daoist master calling herself simply “a woman of Mount Sung” described a proposal of spiritual marriage:
I was originally registered at the Realm of Supreme Clarity; Dwelling in exile, I wandered the five marchmounts. Taking you, milord, as not bound by the common, I come here to urge you to divine transcendents’ studies.
Even Ko Hung had a wife! The Queen Mother also had a husband! Divine transcendents all have numinous mates! What would you think of getting together, milord? (Cahill, 1993, 89).
In China, probably most people felt that spirituality and sexuality were quite compatible, and even mutually reinforcing. The spiritual quest was a kind of natural passion. Suzanne Cahill explains, “Divine passion is the desire of deities and humans for mutual union and communication.” The male devotees “united their two greatest longings in worship of the goddess: the wish to transcend death and the desire for perfect love” (1993, 3, 242).
Of course the quest for an ultimate union of sexuality and spirituality could turn into ribald comedy in the hands of Chinese peasants. The drunken Daoist immortal Lü Dongbin was said to seek an ultimate union with prostitutes, seducing the courtesan Bai Mudan, and making a ludicrous pass at the goddess Guanyin (Katz, 1996, 96). But in most religious folklore, the men show more reverence than lust for their female masters. They commonly call their teachers “mother,” or even “amah” (wet nurse), while female adepts commonly address male teachers as “milord.” These expressions conveyed both loving intimacy and the highest respect for a teacher (Cahill, 1993, 154, 208). The relationships between students and masters were generally personal and self-chosen, like Indian guru-devotee relationships. It could be quite different from joining a religions organization, and following whatever leaders the institution appointed. The teachers often represented “teaching lineages,” with specific bodies of knowledge, transmitted to a handful of students in each generation. And for such “mind to mind” transmissions, the masters and pupils had to choose each other personally. The students had to show talent and a sense of calling. But of course many, or even most, master-pupil relationships were strictly non-erotic, as the term “mother” suggests. Also, probably most disciples of goddesses or wise women have always been women learning from women. Probably the main point is that many female religious teachers were greatly respected by both men and women. There’s a whole literature about women’s relations with gods, and sex as a spiritual practice for women.
In shamanic religion, the general idea is that a “sensitive” soul becomes a channel for a higher spirit. And perhaps most Daoist teachers, or leaders of “popular religion” in China, have believed themselves to be channels for spirit guides, who came to them in dreams or visions. Perhaps most Daoist scriptures or popular religious tracts have been products of “spirit writing,” taken down as dictated from beyond. And the possessing “spirits” they channeled commonly fit the pattern of opposite-sex teachers. So it was with Yang Xi’s Shangqing scriptures. And Yuan of Chu (ca. 300 BCE), who is widely acclaimed the greatest poet of his age, claimed that his Songs of Chu were received from a female shaman spirit, channeling her journeys to the Princess of the East, the goddess of the sun, the directors of destiny, or the goddess of the Xiang River (Maspero, 1978, 366–368). Spirit writing was always a big part of Chinese religion. We even have goddesses of spirit writing, whose tales are combinations of comedy and tragedy. The goddesses of spirit writing such as Qi Gu and Zi Gu, are “toilet goddesses.” They were women killed in nasty love triangles, and their bodies dumped in outhouses. Thereafter they appeared to people in the toilet, giving them deep thoughts. Where else do people get all their good ideas?
From The Chinese Age of the Goddess, by Brian Griffith
(Editor's note: We're playing around with this one at EAP, and very enthusiastic about the subject matter and Brian's signature thorough handling of it. Look for more excerpts as we experiment over the next year, and email any comments to info@exterminatingangel.com.)