Monumenta of Master Lingming, by Wang Jianxin

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Original Text

(in bold: the parts that have been translated)

《灵明上人略传》

灵明上人师尊为一龙，阿文道号先天译为古土不哈尼法统拉希。
口授秘诀古道、古德、古规、古理、古教之一。
四大门宦都传道，格及木传的吾俩教；
三口为一走玄妙，凤凰展翅游九霄；
别的一点比海深，努呢一点闹乾坤。
艾为天，理为地，
伏为人身黄金丹，隐在海底寻不见，除非得遇名师点。
命是空，性是日轮转，春风一动石抽芽，六月翻开腊梅花。
存气生气气接气，散气绝气气归他；
知气本身祖气玄，先天返中天，中天知后天，后天永活万万年。
真主遵名是安拉呼，一口气儿的泼洒；
龙署道庭的子孙，珠珠洞的海品一源；
因为五体一小牛，三个站到是全美；
两海子宫一品侯。
吾俩道有千里马，终朝每日手里耍；
放开行千里，收回即到家，夜晚拴在无影树底下，起卧自由它。
山连海，海连山，海中倒有九眼泉；七眼有水两眼干，中间有个奥妙泉；
要见真主像，当面柱杖，对面发长，唤醒世间人，将他做个当头棒。
本然独一，显然独一，同然独一；
无影无像素己为道，天空立信，动静光亮，古王一王，受喜端庄，一股三点，呼来唤去，
本光无光，五一真一，古道常天，不吃三点头，三口为一气功善道，万古千秋托嘱一点，
抱本归真，古龙古话千秋岁，因为子孙班辈。
龙署道庭，吾俩古道之一，一脉三显池入海，古有常在，三海一品，天命阿丹之祖的品。
吾俩是八部门首，答应地应答的，龙的地天龙镇的海，马圣人吾俩道义。
御皇名叫安拉，一口气儿的泼洒；
两海子宫一品，一更三点，种子结子，福大海量，子孙班辈。
开天辟地到如今，他在道静觉自性；知性显性炼本性，明师提拔做到境，独一无二定性命。
三海一品定乾坤，照哑觉独要做证，呼吸二气炼本身，一脉三显归土垄。
同众天仙受拿问，要把真假问分明，致紧呼唤拿面容，前后中天一起明，抗违两世作迷人。
要得认主之道，莫先认己，任己不确，茫无归路，两海相聚，来去方寸，回光返照，
抱元归一。
海里显阳，天地光元，空中明月，性命合一。混同智能，诚参不即不离。
道本一元，理贯色妙，证察唯心唯物，圣超万有，灵光归然。
戌生定，定生慧，慧现依麻呢，与天地三而参者，明德远矣。
精化气，气化神，神归讨嘿德，合儒道一以贯之。

中华民国十四年古正月吉日遗录
公元一九五三年古三月吉日转抄

English Translation

1

Four Sufi families pursue Sufi paths (turuq),
Gedimu [Qādiriyya] advocates the Prophet‘s guidelines (sharī‘a);
How wonderful the three streams that flow into one,
How proud the phoenix that travels in the holy skies;
The dot under B goes deeper than the sea,
The dot above N rises higher than the sky;
A is the firmament, L is the earth, and F equals human beings;
All are difficult to identify because they are hidden under the sea,
They only can be discovered following the instruction of great masters.

(From the first part in bold characters)

2

Fate (ming) is the sky,
Mind (xing) is the moving of the sun;
Seeds grow from stones after a spring wind,
Winter plums blossom in summer;
Fate (ming) is the sky,
Mind (xing) is the moving of the sun;
Seeds grow from stones after a spring wind,
Winter plums blossom in summer;
Spirit (chi) is energy coming and going;
Recognizing spirit is to understand all,
From the past (xiantian) to the present (zhongtian),
From the present to the future (houtian), and life forever in the future.

(From the first part in bold)

3

The Sufi order led by dragons,
One of the Prophet‘s traditions;
Three streams flow into one,
Just as lakes flow into the sea since ancient times.

(From the second part in bold)

4

Our master is a disciple of Babu,
Because he promised so;
Dragon‘s earth, dragon‘s sea,
The saintly doctrines are from the Prophet.

(From the second part in bold)

5

The sun appears in the sea, lighting the firmament and earth;
The moon in the sky, combining mind and fate;
Gathering into great wisdom, relates faithfully to the just place.

(From the second part in bold)

6

The way of Sufi in Islam is orthodox,
Its practices contain colourful wonders;
Understanding all of the mental and material world,
The Prophet is the greatest messenger, connecting to God by the light.

(From the second part in bold)

7

Material (jing) turns to spirit (qi), the spirit becomes consciousness (shen) and the consciousness goes to God,
All Confucian (ru) and Sufi traditions (dao) are combined into the only way of God.

(From the third part in bold)

 

Commentary

The founder of the Lingmingtang Order, Ma Lingming, was born in 1853 and died in 1915 in Lanzhou. A content translation of the title of this poem might be “Memoirs of Master Lingming” (Lingming Shangren Luezhuan). The text was recorded by his disciples before his death and copied, in 1953, on a hanging scroll where we can see it now. I could see it hanging on the wall of a sitting room of the orders’ Wuxingping Centre in Lanzhou, and took a photo on it in the summer of 2000, on my first visit to the place. Since then, I have collected a number of related poems by the order’s guides and other religious literati in Lanzhou as well as in Sanying and Guyuan (in Ningxia), among others. Among them, the “Memoirs of Master Lingming” is particularly interesting, as a sample of the literate style of Chinese-language Muslim poetry and of the theological sources of Chinese Sufi thought.

© Wang Jianxin for the photo, the transcription, the translation and the comment.

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