Long Day's Journey Into Light: A Memoir

By Fu-Ding Cheng

"Long Day's Journey Into Light" tells of one man's life-long quest to "wake up." Beginning with childhood tragedies, violence, and foster homes, my winding path eventually led to insights and extraordinary experiences

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liquid Light Productions
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578736105

Fu-Ding Cheng

Fu-Ding began as an architect and filmmaker, but since breakthrough experiences with shaman, don Miguel Ruiz in1995, he has utilized his art to share transformational stories that reveal practical pathways to personal freedom for everyone. For more on his work, please visit www.fudingcheng.com

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FOREWORD

by

DON MIGUEL RUIZ

I am honored to introduce to you Fu-Ding Cheng. Read these pages and you will learn how he became a Toltec master. May his story inspire us all on our paths towards personal freedom and spiritual fulfillment.

When I first saw the portfolio of pictures and text at the heart of this book, I was moved by the violence and grief Fu-Ding endured in his formative years, and the fierce determination it sparked in him to find a light behind all his sorrows. How he overcame his troubled past to become the radiant person he is now demonstrates, once again, that adversity, when coupled with consciousness, can spark transformation.

The adventures told in this book are not essays to convince us of anything through logic and reason. Rather, these are authentic stories written so we can feel the rich adventure that comes from looking within, and experience the glory of our own Godhood. By revealing his doubts, mistakes, and tragedies… as well as his eventual triumphs, Fu-Ding empowers us––if he can do it, anyone can. These are tales of inspiration that remind us of the great universal journey into light that we are all embarked upon.

Along the way, like trail markers on every page, he leaves behind hard-earned insights and guidance gained through direct experience. By following these suggestions, we are given invaluable tools to accelerate our own process toward personal freedom.

As a shamanic teacher, Fu-Ding brings unique qualities. Chinese-American, with long years of practice in Kung Fu and meditation, he is able to cross-relate many of the Mesoamerican teachings to those of the East, and show us that all of these wisdom traditions are connected and true.

With his gifts as an artist, filmmaker, and storyteller, he is able to communicate complex ideas in images and language, both simple and concise. I have seen him captivate audiences with his wit and charm, effortlessly leaving the participants with a smile on their faces and profound insights in their hearts. As someone who has had a hand in his evolution, I am deeply gratified to see his mastery, passion, and devotion. He leaves no doubt that the Toltec teachings have successfully passed on to the next generation.

This book of adventures is a gift to us all. So let’s do ourselves a favor––drink them in and feed our souls. Let them fill our hearts with love and wisdom so we too, like Fu-Ding, can help change the dream of the planet and realize a heaven on earth beginning with the radiance of our own beings.

–– Don Miguel Ruiz

Author of The Four Agreements

* * *

PREFACE

In March, 1995 with the giant Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico looming over us, I sat among a circle of 60 apprentices of Toltec shaman don Miguel Ruiz. After a week of intense shamanic practices, we were all in an altered state and were primed for a climactic ceremony called, Jump to the Sun.

Explanations were sparse. I only knew that the large concrete platform we were sitting on––the Sacrificial Altar––was supposed to be one end of a powerful vortex of energy connecting the sun with the earth. After placing key apprentices as guardians of the four directions and seeing to final details, don Miguel gave us all instructions,

Everyone in the circle, close your eyes. When I give the signal, direct energy from your hearts to the two in the center, and those two will redirect the energy to the sun. Fu-Ding and Gabi… go to the center.

I felt honored to be chosen. And apprehensive. "What am I supposed to do? What if I blow it? Walking forward with Gabi, I sat back to back with her in the center of the circle. Patiently, confidently, I waited for don Miguel’s further instructions. Sure enough, I heard him come up to whisper, Let yourself go. Then he walked off. That’s it, my only instructions?"

All right, he announced, everybody begin.

Begin what? I asked myself. I did know enough to short-circuit my distracting thoughts by breathing into the heart…

Immediately, I saw laser beams of reddish-gold light like spokes of a wheel shooting from each person on the circle towards Gabi and me. Energy filled my torso with such force that it jolted my body upright. I scrambled to my feet. Feeling my chest would burst from growing pressure, I arched backward to throw power out my chest up to the sun. Kung Fu-like shouts pulsed out of my mouth. I lost control of my actions. I lost my sense of time and sense of self. Completely surrendered, I felt tremendous voltage continue to surge through me as unknown powers took over... I had become a living conduit between heaven and earth…

It would take me years to appreciate the full impact of that ceremony. At that moment, however, one thing was clear, I had at long last woken up. For months afterwards, I found myself in utter euphoria feeling blessed just to be alive in this magnificent, perfumed earth. I would walk around my neighborhood in an exalted state, marveling at the miracle of mundane life––the exuberance of children playing, the music of distant traffic. Everything felt glorious and radiant. Nothing since has ever been quite the same….

In the mid-2000’s, a therapist friend who knew about my colorful but troubled past urged me to tell my story. I groaned. Having worked for years to bury my past, she wanted me to drag it all out into the open again? I told her that I didn’t want to be like some poor guy in a Eugene O’Neill play with the unsolved problems of one generation dumped on to the next, and the next, and…

But she cut in: "He’s a genius, of course, to have written Long Day’s Journey Into Night and all, but for all his talent, he could never free himself from his own tragedies. But you have. You’ve woken up!"

I paused, saw my struggles told as transformational stories and in a moment of insight, quipped, "You mean tell my stories like… Long Day’s Journey Into Light?"

Many people read memoirs because the author is a celebrity, rich and powerful. If this is true for you, you may want to put this book down. You’ll be disappointed. I am not a celebrity and like the vast majority of us, my signs of outer success are modest and unassuming.

Instead, my focus (and riches) have come from an inner quest––"Long Day’s Journey Into Light." Beginning with childhood tragedies, violence, and foster homes, my winding path eventually led to insights and extraordinary experiences that transformed my tragedies into the greatest treasure I could imagine for anyone––waking up and gaining personal freedom.

These pages are filled with stories of that process. Divine alchemy in action. Decades of true-life mystical adventures have been distilled into this book to encourage you, too, to look within for your own awakening. But look out; in the process, you just might come face-to-face with the glory of love, wisdom, and radiance that is your true nature. Be ready.

* * *

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Profound gratitude goes to don Miguel Ruiz, friend, mentor, and shaman. After a life-long quest, he was the one who fulfilled my biggest aspiration by guiding me to wake up and gain personal freedom. Sincere gratitude goes to the many crucial teachers on my path including Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who introduced me to meditation and the siddhis; Ramakrishna who gave me a gold standard of what a spiritual holy man could be; Paramahansa Yogananda whose teachings inspired me to drop my goals of a being a careerist to become a seeker; Kung Fu Master Yun Chun Chiang, who helped me integrate spiritual principles into the physical body; Steve Hasenberg, who opened my eyes to the powers of spiritual psychology by healing deep personal wounds; Pua Mahoe, kahuna from Maui who gave me the first experience of working with shamans; and Robert Bly and Michael Meade who through the Men’s Conferences introduced me to mentorship and what it means to be a man nowadays.

Thanks to Richard Strauss, longtime friend and collaborator, who gave conceptual, artistic, and literary insights all along the unfolding of this project. Great appreciation goes to Norman Kadarlan for the love and care he devoted to this manuscript and his fierce eye for crucial editing that helped make this text half as long and twice as good; to Rafael Monserrate who gave constant feedback on the many revisions that was part of the process; and to Katya Williamson whose heartfelt guidance and encouragement at the very early stages helped me cut through birth pains to keep the process going.

Finally, I’m indebted to the whole Cheng family, whose rich atmosphere of fine art and tragedies during my formative years gave me the impetus to become an artist and a seeker, for which I’m forever grateful.

* * *

INVOCATION

We surround ourselves with white light of divine protection and golden light of divine love and wisdom. We call in the spirit of the element fire, ruler of our spiritual bodies; water, ruler of our emotional bodies; earth, ruler of our physical bodies; and air, ruler of our mental bodies.

Thank you, dear Spirits, for all you’ve given us. Please guide our thoughts, words, and deeds so we may become impeccable spiritual warriors spreading love and wisdom, joy and creativity to the whole world knowing it must begin with us. Thank you, Mother Earth, Father Sky, so be it… Ho!

* * *

CHAPTER 1

SPIRIT

IN THE REALM OF THE ANCESTORS

CHOICE

At the auspicious age of 40, I went to a psychic for the first time,

You chose this family. It is a family that’s close-knit, spiritual, and artistically gifted. But when you opened your baby eyes, you found yourself in the middle of a battlefield…

A shiver went up my spine! In just a few words, she had summarized my whole childhood. As long as I could remember, tension and conflict had plagued my family.

Sensitive as a child, I had begun feeling anxious for no apparent reason. My grandfather, whom we all called Yeh-Yeh (the respected name for grandfather) tormented our family with so much psychological violence that it eventually caused my mom to break down with horrendous migraines and us five boys to endure beatings and foster homes. Even as a child, I sensed that the world was unfair and that life is suffering.

When the psychic had told me that I had chosen this family, I began to wonder, "Why would anyone select a family so filled with violence and sorrows?" This family seemed to embody the tragedy of having the unsolved problems of one generation dumped onto the next and the next. To find the roots of the problem, I had to dig deeper before my birth into the realms of the ancestors.

* * *

BETRAYED

At the boat dock, the crowd was chaotic and lively by the steamer. Rickshaws, luggage, poignant goodbyes were everywhere, but one young couple seemed to stand out from all those around them. The woman, Sung Yuan, in her early twenties and elegantly dressed in a cheongsam had lost all composure. Beside herself in tears, she clutched desperately to her new husband, Theodore. Though he tried to reassure her, she was so distraught that she could only sob as she clutched her chest in pain. Her sorrow was so palpable that even among the scores of parting scenes, this couple elicited particular concern.

Poor couple. How they must be suffering, one bystander said as she stole looks at the couple.

He looks familiar. Is he a movie star? her friend asked.

No, but he is very handsome. Oh, I know who he is. He’s the son of the Mayor.

Our Mayor? Here in Canton?

Yes. Remember, it was in the papers? Their society wedding last year?

Oh, so she must be the daughter of that big Kwan family. Her father was the Court Physician and consultant to the Empress Dowager!

Stop staring. Have some respect… Poor couple.

In midst of the crowd a few yards from the troubled couple, Theodore’s mother, whom we all called Mah-Mah, (the respected name for grandmother) and his brother and sister watched coldly as Theodore and Sung Yuan’s cried their final goodbyes. Finally, glancing at her watch, Mah-Mah signaled to a servant, It’s time. The servant went up to Theodore, and reluctantly told him it was time to leave as his wife, sobbing uncontrollably, clung to his neck and wouldn’t let go. Theodore’s siblings came to help. With difficulty, they helped the servant gently but forcibly pry her arms apart. They half dragged her away until she was lost in the crowd.

Theodore immediately worked his way out of the crowd and showed his ticket to the purser. Then, with coat and tie flying, he tore up the gangplank to gain a higher perspective from the ship’s deck. There, looking over the mass of people, he found and fixated on his beloved young wife as she was escorted through the crowd and escorted to a car. Struggling, Sung Yuan turned one last time towards the ship as Theodore waved futilely from the deck. Soon, she was gently turned around and pushed into the car. Eyes glued to the car, Theodore watched intently as it drove out of the parking area, joined the traffic eventually to disappear around a corner.

For a long moment, Theodore stared blindly at the spot where Sung Yuan had disappeared. Thinking back, he bemoaned his fate. He couldn’t help but recall the moment when his precious dreams were destroyed when his own father betrayed him.

Holding three volumes of economic and political textbooks, Theodore checked his watch and waited outside of his father’s library. At the exact right moment, he knocked, listened for a grunt from inside, and then walked into a European style room filled with dark wood and cases filled with books. Yeh-Yeh was bent over a table writing a speech. Theodore waited until his father looked up, and placed the three volumes on his desk, involuntarily wincing at the sight of his tung tiew (bamboo cane) on the table.

Yeh-Yeh flipped through the books and quizzed his son randomly –– Name five purposes for import quotas? When a currency appreciates, what will happen to the economy? What’s the basic argument for protectionism? Theodore answered all the questions correctly, and Yeh-Yeh relaxed, satisfied.

You will do well in America. Get your degree and honor our family name. With your success, you’ll honor our country’s name. You are a man now. Enough of your dabbling with art and music. That’s why I have chosen for you economics and political science. That is what’s needed to make something of yourself nowadays. That, and a Western education, which is my big gift to you. That’s how I became Mayor of Canton. You know how I was one of the first Chinese to go to the University in Berkeley.

Yes, father, I know. And thank you. I will honor your big gift and promise to succeed in America. But Theodore looked distraught. He screwed up his courage, Forgive me, father, but please, may I ask you once more about having my wife accompany me…?

WHACK! Theodore jumped. Yeh-Yeh had struck the table with his cane, and exploded, No! We’ve already discussed this, and I already said, no!

But I gave a solemn promise to Madame Kwan, and Sung Yuan, that I would take her to America to be safe from this war. Remember? That was why she let her daughter marry me in the first place. I can’t…

Didn’t you hear? I said, No!

Theodore got down on his knees. Please, father, I beg of you, let her go with me. We just had a baby, and she can’t bear to be separated, and anyway you had promised we could when…

WHACK! against the desk. How dare you contradict me? On his feet and blind with rage, he swung wildly with his cane, WHOOSH! WHOOSH! Theodore sprang back, but not before catching a fierce blow on his shoulder. Out from behind his desk, Yeh-Yeh charged Theodore and dealt him another blow, You will go to America. Sung Yuan and the baby will stay here! I have spoken!

Theodore, on his knees, begged, Please forgive me. It was my fault for bringing it up. Please forgive me. Towering over him with cane raised, Yeh-Yeh glared at him, until, finally, he was able to come back to his senses. Lowering his cane, he returned to his desk and sat down, breathing heavily. His temper had literally possessed him.

I want you to succeed in Michigan. For this, you need no distractions of wife or baby. Now go. Yeh-Yeh gestured, Theodore retreated and closed the door quietly behind him.

Theodore slipped back into his own room, where Sung Yuan waited anxiously to know the outcome of the meeting. One look and she sank down on the bed, stifling tears. What’re we going to do? Suddenly, she lashed out in desperation, I thought you could rescue us from your father, to be a real man and free us from being under his thumb! Theodore winced but said nothing. Painfully, carefully, he removed his coat and a blood-soaked shirt. She looked with horror at a large bleeding welt on his shoulder and across his arm, Oh no, not again....

In tears, Sung Yuan ran off and returned with a basin of warm water and bandages. Ted, I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I’m just so scared. What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen to me, all alone with them?! You know how they hate me. What will happen to me…?

On the boat, lost in his thoughts, Theodore watched blindly as Hong Kong and everything he loved, and hated, slowly receded into the distance. How often he had endured Yeh-Yeh’s temper and tung tiew. For years into his early 20s, the beatings were so intense that they would draw blood. Since no one dared contradict the Patriarch, the wounds would remain untreated, and often get infected. Sometimes they were so painful, he would be unable to sit for weeks. But that was nothing compared to the utter anguish he now felt to be torn away from his new wife and child. "Why can’t I just be with her?" he asked himself over and over again.

As the ocean churned below him, tears welled up in his eyes. On this very boat, he was to have broken free from his father’s totalitarian rule and start a new life with his new wife and baby. But now, all felt lost and bleak.

* * *

DOMAIN OF THE PATRIARCH

Sung Yuan was in shock. At the boat dock, the grim reality of seeing her husband sail off to America alone left her with nothing but dashed hopes and severe chest pains. Have some tea. It will go away, her in-laws said coldly. When Sung Yuan finally stumbled back into her own room, she could only stare blindly at the ceiling and sob.

She was beginning to see that in Yeh-Yeh’s entire household, there was no one on her side. She was all alone… except for Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. Her precious dreams of being the perfect wife, mother, and daughter-in-law had been shattered. At first, she had filled Yeh-Yeh’s house she with love and excitement, and was seen as a perfect daughter-in-law. Everyone from in-laws to servants treated her with great respect. Behind her back, they proudly boasted about her pedigree to each other,

Did you know, her father was a consultant to the Empress Dowager, and #7 Uncle ran around with Sun Yat-sen…

And Chou-En-lai!

We know that already, but I bet you didn’t know that her #5 Uncle planned to assassinate the Empress.

Really? What happened?

Sung Yuan’s father discovered the plot. With his powerful connections, he got his younger brother, #5 Uncle, a scholarship that sent him abroad to cut off his association with those revolutionary extremists…

After dinners, Yeh-Yeh would listen proudly as Sung Yuan played Chopin and Liszt on the piano.

To fulfill his sense of Chinese largesse, Yeh-Yeh valued male heirs. When Sung Yuan became pregnant, everyone was delighted. Yeh-Yeh treated her with even more respect, for she might be carrying the new male heir! It would add to his stature and make up for the shame of the early death of his own firstborn. He ordered everyone to help care for the mother of the new heir.

What should have been a blessing quickly turned sour. Trained only in goodness, Sung Yuan was oblivious to the fears and envy that her favored position would create. The situation was ripe for intrigue and psychological warfare.

It was only a few months to Sung Yuan’s fall. As her pregnancy progressed, she began to notice a marked difference in how she was treated by Yeh-Yeh and others. Her needs were ignored, her comments were scoffed at. What happened? Envy and jealousy from her in-laws, and a sense of superiority from Sung Yuan since she was such a devoted Christian. Out of a remark here, a glance there, rumors were started to turn Yeh-Yeh against SungYuan:

Your daughter-in-law, so pure and innocent? one of her in-laws confessed to Yeh-Yeh. We found out. She has lots of money! Secretly hidden. Much, much more than in her bank account. Much more than you. You know her family. I don’t know why she keeps asking you for more. Momentarily stunned, Yeh-Yeh sat down, a fire in his gut. How dare she try to pull one over on me! The Patriarch! Mayor of Canton! In a few short months, through innuendos, whispers, and rumors, Sook-Mo and her two accomplices had succeeded in poisoning Yeh-Yeh’s ear against his daughter-in-law.

How much of this story from Sung Yuan is true, how much was a product of her sense of martyrdom, we will never know. But one thing is clear; her sufferings increased exponentially.

* * *

THE HEIR

1937. Sung Yuan gave birth to my oldest brother, a healthy firstborn male,! What elation! All the pain she had gone through was worth it for this miracle of birth. From suffering came joy. What a blessed event. Theodore was so proud! Yeh-Yeh, too, was elated. Finally, a proper firstborn male heir, a patriarchal line fulfilled. Yeh-Yeh simply claimed him as his own, and snatched the baby away. He named him Fu-Hing, to arise again, thus embodying his political ideals for his beloved China. (For the sake of clarity, we will call him Alex, his preferred name.)

Sung Yuan was outraged. Isn’t this a violation of a fundamental law of nature? Taken from his mother, the infant cried incessantly. Finally, screwing up her courage, she asked Mah-Mah about the baby needing his mother. Nonchalantly, Mah-Mah replied that they didn’t want the baby to think she’s his mother! They didn’t want the bonding that goes with breastfeeding. But don’t worry. They’ve hired nursemaids to feed him. In addition to her emotional distress, her breasts ached from the unused milk. When she complained of those pains, no one cared. Daughters-in-law are in the same class as servants, Yeh-Yeh scoffed, who cares what they feel? He took it for granted that he could take Alex as his own; it was common in China. In any case, his will as the Patriarch was to be obeyed. Wasn’t this how China had endured for 5000 years? Is it not true that the surest path to attain the blessings of heaven was through the lineage of number one sons?

* * *

LAMB AMONG WOLVES

When Sung Yuan first arrived at her in-laws, she had brought with her three large trunks filled with jewelry, finely embroidered silk comforters, heirlooms for her children, gifts from the Empress, and invaluable medicines and herbs. But soon, she was aghast to discover that they had all but disappeared. Her sizable personal funds, which she had naively deposited for safekeeping in a bank account jointly held with Mah-Mah, had under one ruse or another dwindled down to nothing.

Weak from a traumatic childbirth, she was forced to cook, wash, and serve all the in-laws. When a servant protested on her behalf, Yeh-Yeh quipped, For the sake of new life, a dragon may need the womb of a dog, but after the birth, kick out the dog. Like countless brides in China who had moved into their husband’s households, Sung Yuan was virtually an enslaved prisoner.

She thought of appealing to her own family. They were way more powerful than Yeh-Yeh; they could’ve rescued her! But she kept reminding herself, Be a good Christian, turn the other cheek. I can’t worry my aging mother. Unwittingly, she taken the role of the martyr. How dare I complain? she asked herself. Look at how Christ suffered.

Instead, she wrote letters of glowing happiness and told her whole family of the joy she was having with her new in-laws and baby. With this well-intentioned lie, she betrayed herself and planted the seeds of her own undoing. She began to waste away.

* * *

ESCAPE

This is our moment, our chance! Madame Sui said in an excited whisper. She was a kind-hearted teacher who lived across the street who had been alarmed to see Sung Yuan turn from a blooming young wife to a gaunt, oppressed victim in just over a year. Afraid that she’d die, Sui took it upon herself to goad Sung Yuan to action, to escape and join her husband in America. They had waited for their chance, and here it was!

Luckily for Sung Yuan, Yeh-Yeh had just been posted to Mexico as an ambassador.

Sui seized on this opportunity and hatched a plan. They smuggled a letter to Sung Yuan’s #1 Brother and instructed him to write a note that said that Madame Kwan was critically ill in Peking and that Sung Yuan must come immediately with her new son to pay their respects.

Mah-Mah, who now made all decisions as the Matriarch, read the letter with scorn. Since obedience to parents was sacrosanct, Mah-Mah was forced to comply. But, defiantly, she simply refused to let the baby go. Too dangerous for a baby to travel. It’s wartime. As for you, you have my permission to go, but you’re not going anywhere either, she sneered. You have no money! Fortunately, #1 Brother, with foresight, had included with the letter all the finances and arrangements for passage to Peking. "But what about my baby?" she screamed