NO.NAME
www.patrickkellytaiji.com
Professor Cheng's mother was skilled at differentiating medicinal herbs. When Professor Cheng was young, he was often ill. He often accompanied his mother to pick herbs; thus sprouted in him the desire to use medical knowledge and herbs to help the world.
At age 25, Professor Cheng came to know Sung You-an of Anhui province, whose family had been famous for nine generations as practitioners of medicine. Professor Cheng greatly respected him and became his disciple. Actually Dr. Sung sought out Professor Cheng. According to Mrs. Cheng, the story goes as follows. Dr Sung was in his seventies and had long since retired. His four sons were all famous doctors, but their father was still looking for someone to teach all the mysteries of his medical knowledge to. Evidently, his sons were not fully capable of grasping all that Dr. Sung knew. Dr. Sung was visiting an old friend in Shanghai and happened across a prescription Professor Cheng had written. Professor Cheng was not a professional doctor at the time, but he would write prescriptions for friends. Upon reading the prescription, Dr. Sung was greatly impressed and told his friend that he would like to meet the author of it. No doubt he was an old and experienced doctor of medicine, and Dr. Sung would like the opportunity to discuss medicine with such a man. It would be nice, he told his friend, for two greybeards of medicine to compare theories.
Dr. Sung's friend chuckled and said that the author of that prescription was not exactly a greybeard. In fact, he was a young Professor. When Dr. Sung heard that Professor Cheng was a young man, he felt a surge of hope that this was the student to whom he could pass on his knowledge. But when he learned that the young man was already a Professor, his hope ebbed. How could he presume to ask a man already established as a Professor to become a student again?
Dr. Sung returned to Ahui disappointed. From time to time he would make the long journey to visit his old friend, hoping that somehow he could meet Professor Cheng. And his friend, in the meantime, prevailed upon Professor Cheng to go study with old Dr. Sung. But Professor Cheng was so busy teaching classes and administrating his college that he had no free time except for holidays and summer vacation. Nevertheless, Dr. Sung's friend persisted.
Finally, Professor Cheng decided to go visit old Dr. Sung. He had learned that the venerable doctor dearly loved to eat preserved leg of dog. This delicacy was a specialty of Professor Cheng's home province of Chekiang. However, preserved dog's legs were extremely difficult to obtain, because they were used in the process of preserving hams. For every 100 hams, one dog’s leg was used to impart a special flavor to the hams. Usually the dog’s legs were set aside for the exclusive use of master chefs. Nevertheless, Professor Cheng managed to obtain one, and along with three other gifts, such as finely woven cloth, white fungus, etc., set off to visit old Dr. Sung in Anhui province. Dr. Sung was happy indeed to see him, but refused the presents - except for the dog’s leg.
Professor Cheng wanted to kow tow and go through the formal ceremony of becoming a student. But Dr. Sung declared it was not necessary. Let them, he suggested, abide by the tradition of "instruction without regard to difference in age" (wang-nien chih chiao). But Professor Cheng insisted on the traditional student -teacher relationship, for It was well known that only a student who had gone through the formal ceremony would be taught openly and freely all the secrets the master knew.
The two men were at loggerheads: Professor Cheng would not study without kow tow, and Dr. Sung was not willing to have Professor Cheng kneel before him. Would this be the end of it? Would they part because of their mutual insistence? Then Dr. Sung found a way to satisfy both parties. He said to Professor Cheng, “Very well then, kow tow to my ancestors.” He then indicated the altar which held the spirit tablets of his ancestors and Professor Cheng performed the ceremony there.
Thereupon old Dr. Sung came out of retirement. He hung out the sign indicating he was once again practicing medicine. This enabled Professor Cheng to experience firsthand how the old doctor treated his patients from start to finish. When Dr. Sung was not treating patients, he instructed Professor Cheng regarding which books to read and what to look for in them.
Professor Cheng's intelligence was above normal, and morning and night he listened to his teacher talk about the Tao of medicine. Thus he came to thoroughly understand the wonderful mysteries of the prescriptions of the great doctors of Tang, Sung, Yuan, Ming, and Ching dynasties. In addition, he achieved mastery through his own studies of traditional Chinese gynecology and obstetrics, as well as orthopedic medicine.
In 1937 the Sino-Japanese war began. Professor Cheng chose from among his special prescriptions those that would be of benefit to the military and gave them to authorities so the government could make the medicine and see to the distribution of them.
Professor Cheng hung out the sign indicating that he was staying at home to wait and treat patients. This was the first time he had done so. His fame as a doctor soon spread far and wide.
From 1928 on, when Wang Ching-wei, Liu Jei-hen, and others, put forward proposals to eliminate Chinese traditional medicine and pharmaceutics, the direct line of the Tao of Chinese medicine drained away day by day until it was almost dry. In contrast to the above were Chiao Yi-fang, Ch'en Kuo-fu, Ch'en Li-fu and others who submitted proposals in favor of Chinese medicine, but the world of Chinese doctors was not able to rise to the occasion. Then, Professor Cheng, together with Dr. Ch'in and other friends of the Tao of medicine founded the National Chinese Medical Association. This association, for the first time in Chinese history, succeeded in uniting all the famous traditional Chinese doctors on the mainland to research the best and finest points of Chinese medicine and pharmacology. As result, Chinese medicine grew and flourished. After the foundation of the association, Professor Cheng was elected its president.
In 1946, Professor Cheng took a position in the National Assembly for the Construction of the Constitution of the Republic of China. The following year he was elected to the National Assembly as the representative of the community of doctors of Chinese medicine.
In 1958, the College of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology was planned, and Dr. Chin Ch'in, as founder of the school, asked Professor Cheng to be either Director of the Board of Trustees or President of the College. This would add stature to the college. Professor Cheng was polite but firm in his refusal: " Sir, you have single handedly done all the work in founding this school, and if I were to take the position of honor, it would not be right." So he did not accept the offer. However, when the school ran into trouble later on, Professor Cheng stepped forward and spared no effort to help.
As a youth Professor Cheng was very weak, so he studied Shaolin Chuan to strengthen his body. At age 27, in Shanghai, suffering from third degree tuberculosis, he studied Taijiquan from the famed master Yang Cheng-fu. In little more than a year Professor Cheng had gained an understanding of the main principles of t'ai-chi ch'uan. During that time, Yang's wife was stricken with a serious illness. All doctors had been helpless to prescribe for her. But Professor Cheng did not want to see the wife of his teacher die, so he carefully examined her. Eventually, she became well. Mrs. Yang said to her husband, “Now that I am well, how are you going to thank this young man? You must teach him everything you know and don't hold back a single secret!” Deeply indebted for the favor Professor Cheng had done his family, Master Yang abided by his wife's request and taught Professor Cheng the important secrets of Taijiquan and Taiji chi sword. He held nothing back.
Later, in T'ai-yuan in Shansi Province, Professor Cheng practiced marvelous techniques of Taijiquan energy with Zhang Qingling.
After twenty years of constant practice, Professor Cheng condensed the form into 37 postures, thereby making it easier to teach, to learn, and to practice.
At age 32 he taught Taijiquan at the Central Military Academy (formerly the Huang-po Military Academy).
At the age of 37 he was a consultant to the Hunan Provincial Government. At the same time he also held the post of Director of Martial Arts of Hunan Province. At the time, Hunan consisted of 75 counties. The heads of martial arts in each county came to study with Professor Cheng and went back to their respective counties and taught. It should be noted that Hunan has traditionally been known as a province famous for its martial arts. Professor Cheng had to prove himself a martial arts practitioner worthy of being the provincial head of martial arts.
At the age of 38 he travelled to Chungking in Schezuan province. He took a position with the Central Military Training Group teaching Taijiquan. One time, the British embassy in China gave a banquet. The master of ceremonies asked Professor Cheng to give a t'ai-chi ch'uan demonstration. Some members of the British Army wanted to compete with him. When attacked, Professor Cheng seemed merely to turn over his hand and turn his body slightly and his opponent fell more than ten feet away! Later, at a party given by the American Army, the same thing happened. Onlookers couldn't help exclaiming their delight and amazement.
At age 48, Professor Cheng moved to Taiwan. There he founded the Shr Jung School of Taijiquan.
At age 63 he went to America. There he founded the Shr Jung Center for Culture and the Arts (the Taiji school). It was open to all who wanted to study and had a large student body.
At present, those who have directly or indirectly studied Master Cheng's Taijiquan already number more than 100,000 people. Those who have truly understood his teaching and progressed to the study of the sword number more than 50 people.
Professor Cheng had 5 especially strong points. Furthermore, he could unify them as if they were pearls threaded on a single string. That string was the Dao.
Because he studied deeply the classics and the sages, he fathomed the depths of the principles of philosophy. Thus the past and the present, the sages of old and this man of the modern world reached a harmony. Therefore in regard to exhausting the possibilities of affairs of all kinds, it was as if he had picked up a coat by the collar. That is to say, he held the reins of control. The venerable Yu You-jen praised him in this way, "He is a unique talent of this era. What others regard as the most difficult of matters, he alone does easily and well." This is not a hollow accolade! The accomplishments of his lifetime were all directed toward developing and expanding traditional Chinese culture. All of the above were products of Professor Cheng's eclectic nature and penetrating genius, and were original works -not mere compendiums of the works of other scholars. Truly, these writings will weather time and criticism!
(Dec. 1, 1978 with Shr-mu, working on Lao-shr’s biography.)
Professor Cheng was a distinguished looking gentleman with a cultured air. His character was outspoken and honest, and he walked a straight path from which he never wavered nor compromised himself.
At age 40, Professor Cheng married Miss Yi-tu, the fourth daughter of Air Marshall Ting, the chief of the brand new Department of Air Force. The young lady was elegant in appearance and quite intelligent. She was a student of medicine and earned her B. A. at Peiking University. She was especially fond of literature and art. Thus she helped her husband educate their children. Everyone knew of her gentle grace.
Over the past 10 years or so Professor Cheng has traveled in America and Europe, accompanied by his wife. In 1974 he returned to Taiwan to publish Yi Ch’uan (commentary on the Book of Changes) which consisted of more than 100,000 words. He personally proof-read the galleys, and had just gone over them the second time when he said to close friends: “Should I die, I'll have no regrets.” Everyone took the words as a joke. Who would have thought that at midnight of March 23, 1975 he was found with his head pillowed in his arms on the desk as if asleep. He never woke up. He was immediately sent to the hospital. At 2:15 AM. on March 26, he passed from his world. He was in his 75th year.
Yen Chia-kan, the president of the Republic of China, wrote a memorial for Professor Cheng, “I never dreamed that the first memorial I would write would be that of an old friend.”
Among his collections of poetry are: T’ang Shih Chen Tu (commentary explaining the poems of the Tang Dynasty), Yu-ching Ts’ao-t’ang Shih-chi (consisting of two volumes of original poetry by Professor Cheng), Man-ch’ing Tz’u-hsuan (Professor Cheng’s selection of his own tz'u a form of poetry).
Books of his calligraphy and painting include: Cheng Man-ch’ing Hua-chi (an album of Professor Cheng's paintings), Man-jan Hsieh-yi (a collection of Professor Cheng’s paintings in the hsieh-yi style) Cheng Man-jan Shu-hua Chi (a book of Professor Cheng's calligraphy and paintings), Man-jan San-lun (Professor Cheng's writings on poetry, calligraphy, and painting).
In the field of medicine, his books are the following: Nu-k'e Hsing-fa (a publication containing Professor Cheng's prescriptions and theories about gynecology), T'an-i Pa-yao (about cancer), Ku-k'e Ching-wei (pertaining to orthopedics).
Writings on Taijiquan are: Cheng-tzu T'ai-chi Ch'uan Shih-san P'ien (Master Cheng's 13 Chapters on T'ai-chi Chuan), T'ai-chi Ch'uan (published in English), Cheng-tzu T'ai-chi Ch'uan Tzu hsiu Hsing-fa (Master Cheng's New Method of T'ai- Ch'uan Self Taught) T'ai-chi (in English, co-authored by Robert W. Smith.)
There is also a movie on Taijiquan in black and white, and one in color which also shows Taiji sword.
In regard to culture and tradition, he published the following: Lao-tzu Yi-chih Chieh (commentary on the Tao The thing of Lao Tzu), Hsueh-yung Hsing-chieh (a commentary on the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean of Confucius), Jen-wen Ch’ien-shuo (Professor Cheng's original thoughts on philosophy, culture, and self-cultivation in simplified form), Hsing-pen (Professor Cheng's treatise concerning the ancient question of whether man is born intrinsically good or, intrinsically bad), Lun-yu Shih-chih (Commentaries on the Analects of Confucius), Yi Ch'uan commentary on the Book of Changes).