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Liu Yiming was one of the greatest Daoists of the eighteenth century, with numerous writings on all the Daoist classics.
He was afraid however that the world would ignore what he saw as a crucial text for human development, simply because it did not conform to what people might expect such a text to look like* and therefore only read it for entertainment.
The text he had in mind was "Journey to the West" which we know as the adventures of Monkey, and so he wrote a detailed commentary pointing out the hidden depths and alchemical secrets expressed through the plotline, characters, and their interactions.
Here, for the first time in English (I believe) is Liu Yiming's preface to that work, setting forth an overview of his undertanding and his intent in writing the text.
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*Almost as if one were to say that a book such as Dune contained important developmental material layered within the surface content of the story. Most people looking for "enlightenment" would not look twice at a sci-fi novel as having any value at all.
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Liu Yiming’ s preface to the Xi You Yuan Zhi (The True Intent of the Journey to the West)
“Liu Yiming was one of the greatest Daoists of the Qing Dynasty,” says Thomas Cleary, “He seems to have been born around the year 1737 and lived until at least 1826. … Liu did not begin writing until he was in his sixties, vowing to reveal the secrets of the alchemical classics. The superb quality of his illuminated and illuminating commentaries and essays is well known to Western readers through his explanations of the Yi Jing, Understanding Reality, and the Four Hundred Character Treatise on the Gold Elixir.”
One of Liu’s earliest writings was a commentary on The Journey to the West (Xi You Ji), known popularly as Monkey and made into countless movies and TV shows.
According to Liu Yiming, however, the novel was not, as the modern scholar Hu Shi claimed “Monkey is simply a book of good humor and profound nonsense” but rather an esoteric map of human development that can be read deeply to extract the secrets of the path.
A few of Liu Yiming’s comments on the Journey can be easily found in Thomas Cleary’s Vitality Energy Spirit: A Taoist Sourcebook, but a more complete collection can be found in the much more difficult to access text by David L. Rolston “How to Read the Chinese Novel.”
Here is an excerpt from the latter that gives the flavour of Liu Yiming’s incisive dissection of the subject.
“The Journey to the West describes all three disciples as having different abilities. Sha Monk is not capable of transformations at all, Ba Jie know thirty-six transformations, while Pilgrim knows seventy-two transformations. Though his number of transformations is said to be seventy-two, Pilgrim is actually capable of countless transformations. Why is this? He is the Metal with Water, the true yang principle external to one’s self. Belonging to the category of Ming or life-store, lord of hardness and motion, he signifies the primal breath of all living creatures and unites the strategic modes of the seventy-two time periods (hou) of the year, each of five days. There is nothing that is not included in him, nothing that is not perfected by him. A perfect substance (ti) having a great function (yong), he is an all-pervading principle of unity. That is why he is incapable of boundless transformations, unimaginably wonderful and mysterious.
Zhu Ba Jie happens to be the Wood within the Fire, the true yin principle internal to one’s self. Belonging to the category of nature, lord of pliancy and quiescence, he holds the handle by which the illusory body is controlled., but he can only change into substance that is posterior to Heaven (hou Tian) and not the true treasure that is anterior Heaven (xian Tian). His transformations are incomplete, and that is why, of the seventy-two transformations, he is capable of only thirty-six.
As for the Sha Monk, he is the true Earth, and he lives to guard the Central Quarter and to harmonise yin and yang. He is incapable of any transformation.
Only one who know these things can read the Journey to the West.”
David L. Rolston “How to Read the Chinese Novel” p. 312.
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Now what follows is Liu Yiming’s Preface, written in 1758, to his book “The True Intent of Journey to the West”. As far as I know, it has not appeared in English prior to this:
Preface to The Original Intent of Journey to the West
The sagely author of "The Journey to the West" makes clear the principle that the three teachings are all related, transmitting the path of cultivating both essence and life. In proverbs are hidden the workings of Heaven; in jokes and banter, the methods of the mind are exposed. What ancient people dared not tell, the sage tells; what ancient people dared not reveal, the sage reveals.
Each chapter, each section is written from arduous personal experience of practice; each word and each idea are the result of truly treading the path.
The axis of creation, all the tricks and subtleties of cultivating reality, are all set out clearly. You could say it is pulling out the roots of Heaven and penetrating the haunts of demons, opening the door of life and sealing the door of death, but actually it is returning to the basic source of the flowing current of the fundamental, the stepping stone for returning to the root and restoring life.
The enlightened in Confucianism can become sages, in Buddhism they can become Buddhas, in Daoism they can become immortals. There is no need to travel an eighteen thousand mile road, you can obtain the same true scripture as Tripitaka. You don’t need to suffer 81 Difficulties, you can leap the clouds with a single somersault. You don’t need to use magic to dispel monsters and run off demons, a single golden cudgel will do the trick.
The journey to the Western Heaven to obtain the scriptures elucidates the Samadhi of the Lotus Sutra and the Diamond Sutra; the five pilgrims bring out the heavenly mechanisms of the He Tu and Luo Shu, the cycle of nine times nine returning to the real clarifies the mysteries of the books Wu Zhen Pian and Can Tong Qi. The hundreds of monsters and demons warn the reader to avoid the delusions of sidetracks and auxiliary methods, while all the exhaustive explorations of foreign lands demonstrate the everyday down-to-earth undertaking that is the path.
Tripitaka taking his disciples to India shows that those giving their all to develop their essential self will certainly fulfil their heavenly mandate; the disciples adhering to the monk will achieve their just reward. Having cultivated life, one even more should refine essence. The thirteen years travelling to the Western Heaven and coming back indicates the secrets of cyclic return to the origin. The Tathagata compiles the three true scriptures of the Tripitaka, the five sages take one scripture to pass on through generations, uniting three and five to create a miraculous achievement.
All of the essential points lie right here. The help it provides for the Noble Path, the insights it holds for later generations of students, how is it anything but profound and rare?
Unfortunately all this has been obscured by some commentators, such as Wang Xiangxu, who just make things up according to their own opinions, and only go as deep as saying “mind of the monkey” and “horse of the will” confusing later generations with their baseless speculations.
It is only when we get to Master Chen Shibin’s True Explication of the Journey to the West that the true starts to become differentiated from the false and the hidden Journey to the West came to be explained. However, while the explanation was great and the principles clear, he did not quite link them up and so the original intent was not completely laid out, so you could say it was wonderful but not perfect.
Here, in my book, I venture to offer explanations at the end of each chapter, having thought each chapter over carefully again and again. However, if Chen Shibin has already pointed an issue out clearly enough, I don’t repeat it; rather I’ll go into detail on things he has passed over and lay those out in order and each at their different level, annotating each one as clearly as possible.
The goal is to help future students who want to understand essence and life to proceed from beginning to end and to understand at a glance that Journey to the West shows that the Three Teachings are one family and one principle, the path of refining essence and life, and not to be fooled by random teachings and extravagant speech. This will help them avoid sidetracks and deviant paths.
Just note that the discussion of literary technique is outside the scope of my book.
The time is the third day of the first month of autumn in the wù-yín year of the Qianlong era. Liu Yiming, a simple and unadorned hermit residing on Qiyun Mountain in Yuzhong, writes this preface."