Jess Wilson was given the YeYoung lineage title Master Zhi Xing, and certified as a Level One YeYoung Qigong & Neidan Master in 2009. All the certified YeYoung Masters progressively advance in the Five Arts including the following subjects at 5 levels under Grandmaster YeYoung: Chinese Thought (Chinese sages and their philosophies), Meditation (Qi Gong, Neidan, Chen Style Tai Chi, herbal medicine, and Art of Tea), Divination (I Ching and Fengshui), Poetry and Calligraphy, and Qin Music. Each level indicates the ability and depth of the Master’s knowledge and practice in the Five Arts.
YeYoung Lineage
Without English words comparable in meaning to the Chinese words shicheng, we must make due with the general translation of “master’s lineage transmission.” Furthermore, in the Chinese context, this expression refers to genealogy or the family history overlapped with consanguineous ties, and the parallels of fictive family kinship. With regard to Qi Gong and Tai Chi practices, the lineage transmission indicates the non-broken genealogical line that is sustained by esoteric techniques of the oral-mind-transmission and physical empowerment. Lineage Transmission, as a teaching method, is contrary and in conflict to self-taught or self-claimed teachings, which include learning with books, audio or video, and modernized organizations.
A true lineage is customarily passed on and perfected by many great masters with their life long disciplinary practice and consistent self-cultivation. Put simply, it is a way of life with hierarchical order for people who belong to a lineage. Lineage Transmissions are essentially a part of the establishment of beliefs, thoughts, knowledge, and practices in a culture like China. Comparable to the modern Western idea of a university, every lineage exists as an individual unit of the cultural establishment. From this perspective, a lineage and its history can be viewed like a university and its history. If the idea of a non-Western cultural practice in the form of lineage appears to be culturally chauvinistic and intimidating to Westerners, then it is no different than the idea of the practice at Harvard University that is chauvinistic and intimidating.
The Prince of Ning (1378-1448), who established YeYoung Lineage in 1428, was the 17th son of the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and is known today via his contributions of invaluable volumes to the Chinese Classics. He devoted his life in the Five Arts that included the studies and practices of Chinese philosophy, history, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, plays, poetry, Qin music, practices including Daoyin and Neidan, medicine, the art of tea, divination and numerology, and other subjects. The Prince of Ning’s Neidan and Daoyin teachings are collected in his book Huorenxing or Enliven the Heart, in addition to his oral transmissions within the YeYoung Family. The original edition of Enliven the Heart is available for viewing in the library of Beijing University today.
From the 1800s YeYoung Lineage has been enhanced by the YeYoung Family members: Qingji (1835-1900), father of Youhua, a Yellow Robe Knight of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Denke (1870-1938), a great Taoist doctor, older brother of Youhua, and Youhua (1889-1976), known as Sage YeYoung Ren. His Eminence YeYoung Ren lived to the full aspiration of cultivating a perfection of body-mind-spirit with high attainments in the Five Arts through the end of the Qing dynasty, the Nationalist regime (1911-1949), and the Communist regime.
Born in 1961, Grandmaster Bing Fan YeYoung, also known as YeYoung Tzu, was raised and trained as the lineage heir. He began to receive the YeYoung Lineage teaching at age 9 from his grandfather, the Sage YeYoung Ren, and his father Wen Gai, a highly achieved Taoist doctor. Until he left China in 1989, Grandmaster YeYoung continued his studies in Chinese philosophy, literature and poetry, Daoyin and Neidan, medicine, I Ching, Fengshui, Sizhu, and Literati painting and calligraphy under the careful directions of his grandfather and his father.
It is Grandmaster YeYoung’s contribution to integrate the Chen Family Large Frame Taiji Quan into the YeYoung Lineage teaching and practice. He began Chen Family Style Taiji Quan studies and practice at age 12. His first teacher Qi Youren (1933-2001), a student of the Ninth Patriarch (seventeenth generation) Chen Fake, was a Taoist martial arts master, and the last Kong Tong School lineage holder. In late 1970s, Grandmaster YeYoung had the good fortune to study with the late Chen Zhaokui (1928-1981), the Tenth Patriarch (eighteenth generation) of Chen Family Large Frame Taiji Quan.
His Eminence YeYoung Ren, the former patriarch of YeYoung Lineage, passed the authority to transmit this lineage teaching directly to Grandmaster Bing Fan YeYoung, the eighteenth patriarch of the YeYoung Lineage, in an unbroken lineage from the time of The Prince of Ning of the Ming Royal Family of China.