2009-Nov-15- a Female Taoist abbess was intronized for the first time in the history of taoism; Wu Chengzhen, the abbess of Changchun temple in Wuhan (Hubei province) was officially recognized a person of great merit and deep taoist knowledge during the ritual held on the 15th November 2009. She is now the only Taoist bearing this title and was selected by the whole taoist community. Pilgrims from all over the world (Singapour, malaysia, Egipt, Taiwan, France, Spain…) and representatives of many Taoist associations came to honor her.
I went there to pay my respects and brought along the french TV crew from ARTE.
实拍中国道教史上首位女方丈武汉升座仪式
Presentation of Changchun temple on daoinfo.org
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Obviously..I was talked into giving a speech by my daoist friends from Wuhan...
2009年11月15日，武汉长春观，吴诚真方丈升座仪式上，法国道协会长景秀代表法国道协致辞。
法国道教协会会长凡琳·玛蒂
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2009年11月15日，吴诚真方丈升座仪式上，法国道协会长景秀（凡琳·玛蒂）代表法国道协致辞后，主持人和她开起了玩笑：“是修道让您如此年轻吗？”她回答说：“是的。”
据了解，景秀出生于法国巴黎，家在法国巴黎南部一个小镇上，今年37岁。她是巴黎大学的西医学博士，曾在英国工作了5年，研究脑部对药物的反应。1998年，她的一位英国同事接触道教文化中的打坐，自此迷上了东方古国博大精深的道教文化。次年，景秀结识了到英国传播道教文化的陕西青华宫黄世真道长，黄道长收下了这个法兰西女弟子，并赠道号“景秀”，后者成为全真道教龙门派第32代弟子。 |
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The event made the headline in chinese newspapers and on TV.:
Here is an excerpt of her interview with China Daily:
China's First Femaile Principal Taoism Abbess
The vigor of Wu Chengzhen's faith has made her an exception to nearly two millennia of Taoist clerical orthodoxy.
On Nov 15, her intense piety earned her an appointment as principal abbess (Fang Zhang) of Wuhan's Changchun Temple, making Wu, 52, the first woman to hold such an eminent position in China's only native archaic religion.
"I think the ordination of a woman to such a high rank is a sign of the times," she says.
"It won't change anything about my daily life, but inside, I feel happy and grateful and a little ashamed, because I should do more."
Wu Chengzhen is the first principal abbess (Fang Zhang) of a Taoist temple in the religion's history.
The abbess wraps her crossed legs in a peach-colored blanket as she sits on the bed of her dorm room in Renmin University of China in Beijing, where she's now studying. A brown sweater peaks out from beneath her dark blue robe and her bun pokes out of the center of a cylindrical Taoist cap.
Periodically, her eyelids droop and she retreats into da zuo (Taoist mediation) mid-conversation. Moments later, she snaps back from her trances, speaking lucidly and seeming to have heard everything said while in her daze.
Wu relates her new station to the ancient myth of the Eight Immortals, a tale revered by Taoists. One of the deities, He Xiangu (Lotus Immortal), was a woman.
"Taoism strengthens equality among all people," Wu says. "It's also more egalitarian toward women than other major religions."
Wu comes from a devout family and is the youngest of six children, named Wu Yuanzhen before she was given her religious name. During her middle school years, she immersed herself in the home libraries of her Christian, Buddhist and Taoist relatives.
Her father was profoundly influenced by Confucian ethics, especially familial piety. When his mother fell ill at age 56, he hacked a chunk out of his humorous (the upper arm bone) with a knife for her to eat. He hoped such a grand gesture would move the gods to heal the woman.
Wu, 52, was crowned Principal Abbess of Wuhan's Changchun Temple at a grand ceremony on Nov 15.
Wu says it worked. Her grandmother immediately recovered and lived to the age of 87. The event is recorded in the Wu Family Genealogy kept by the government of Xinzhou, a county in Wuhan.
Wu followed an elder sister's example to commit herself to Taoism at age 23.
In an interview with the Wuhan-based Changjiang Times, Wu said she began her life at the Changchun Guan (guan refers to a Taoist temple), cooking, washing and planting vegetables.
She recalls that her master once told her to check if the water in a kettle had boiled. When she lifted the lid to look inside, the steam almost burned her face.
"My masters often scolded me: If I couldn't do anything, why did I leave the secular life?"
But she proved to be a persistent disciple - the only one of eight who remained after a year of training.
"Taoism focuses on optimism, cherishes life and deals directly with reality," she says.
But Wu accepts the supernatural in her conception of the corporeal. She claims to have seen dragons in Jilin province's Longtan Temple. She says the creatures swam in circles in the river while she and 25 believers stood on the banks communicating with the gods in June 2001.
The youngest of six children, Wu, followed an older sister's example to commit herself to Taoism at 23.
"It wasn't one dragon, one time or one day. It was three dragons, three times and three days it's true; you can ask the local people."
She describes the legendary rulers of water as being several dozen meters long with white bellies. Upon their arrival, the waters stilled and the skies became sunny, she says.
"There are many things we don't know much about, but we can't say they don't exist," she says.
Wu claims to have also seen Taoist gods flying toward her clad in radiant attire. "I always feel L Dongbin (one of the Eight Immortals) by my side," she says.
"If the pantheon chooses me, I will persevere in cultivating myself to also become an immortal."
Wu says she saw the deities during da zuo, which she does for several hours a day.
Between prayers and meditation, she attends to her daily work for the temple. This includes cultural tasks, such as preaching and advocating Taoism - she has some 10,000 disciples from all walks of life - and "hard construction" tasks, such as building Taoist teahouses and restaurants in the temple, and planning a hospital and a museum in the coming decade.
"I want to create a place where people can feel Taoist culture in everything - the food, the buildings, the music, the medicine, the teahouses and the tai chi," she says.
"There's so much to do; it will require tens of millions of yuan."
Changchun Temple has in recent years donated more than 4 million yuan to help victims of disasters, such as the Sichuan earthquake, the blizzards in South China, Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan and the Indonesian tsunami. It has also contributed to building charitable Hope Schools for poor children in rural areas.
Wu disagrees with commercializing spirituality, as Shi Yongxin has done for the Shaolin Temple. She says she doesn't know much about the entrepreneurial monk, except that he cruises around in luxury cars when visiting Beijing.
The temple provides Wu, who has lived there in a 10-sq-m room for three decades, a 370-yuan monthly allowance.
She lifts her robe to reveal holes in her sweater and then slips off her 25-yuan shoes, exposing toes that stab through tears in her socks.
"It's funny, isn't it?" she says, giggling.
"What's on the outside doesn't matter. My happiness comes from my soul," she explains, pointing to her heart and then to her temple.
Her greatest source of joy is personal development, she says.
Wu is finishing her dissertation through a four-month seminar at Renmin University organized for 52 religious figures.
Because Wu, who is 52, doesn't know how to use a computer, she handwrote 24 pages of the paper and had her apprentice type it for her. The study examines Taoism's function in creating a harmonious society.
"There shouldn't be any nuclear weapons, war or pollution, because these aren't propitious to the world," she says, tapping the paper and chuckling.
"People should be more like water, because water can absorb and hold a lot of things."
In 2001, Wu earned her first graduate degree at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.
Her degrees are honorary, because she only finished high school before the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). After a brief stint as an accountant after graduation, she began self-study at the temple but received no other formal higher education.
She became a Zhu Chi (lower-ranking abbess) of the temple in 1995. This May, when the temple decided to choose a principal abbess, the leaders of all departments of the temple unanimously chose Wu.
All Chinese Taoist temples have Zhu Chi, but only the prominent ones have Fang Zhang.
Leaders from the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Chinese Taoist Association attended the grand ceremony at which Wu became the principal abbess.
Wu believes her new appointment will bring new tribulations.
She likens it to the heroes of the story Journey to the West, in which the pilgrims who received a divine calling to retrieve Buddhist scriptures from faraway lands faced a myriad of harrowing obstacles.
"If the gods chose me to do this, they'll place greater difficulties in my path," she says.
"But facing these will assist my self-refinement and make me a better Taoist."
(Source: China Daily December 4)
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- Intronization of the abbess: http://fr.showchina.org/21/04/200911/t468329.htm (Fr,)
-Changchun Guan history : http://en.daoinfo.org/wiki/Eternal_Spring_Temple_(Changchunguan)_,_Wuhan (Engl.)
-Wuhan : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan (Fr.) ; http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E5%B8%82 (ch.) ;
-My photos on PW and DW
-Web-videos
-Chinese newspapers (ch.)
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