Who We Are

“The death of identity coincides with the end of the world; the identity and the world are the same illusion. The Self is the world and the world is the Self. While the most enormous tragedy that the human mind can conceive is taking place, there is no longer a trace of any observer to grasp the illusory nature of the drama that is taking place. No place to take refuge, nor “external” point of view from which to observe. Now the Ego is like a dying planet: the identity and the world are dissolving in unison, in the absolute imperturbability of Nothingness, which remains unaware of the apparent tragedy taking place, even of itself.”

Chien Teng Ho

The Shēngmìng shù 生命樹 (‘Tree of Life’) Association was founded in 1993 by Chien Teng Ho with the aim of promoting the Dōng Shèng Méi 東聖玫 (Sacred Rose of the East) tradition in the West. The first students were introduced to the study and the practice of Kung fu and Chi Kung, specific disciplines of the Outer Circle (Dà Hǎi 大海 ‘Great Sea’ and Dà Tiān 大天 ‘Great Sky’) of the School. During the years, gradually, Chien Teng Ho started to transmit practices pertinent to the Inner Circle (Bā Zhēn 八珍 ‘The Eight Treasures’) and eventually moved on, over the last ten years, to the direct transmission of the Dōng Shèng, the purest essence of every traditional teaching, where the student is introduced to his true nature.

The lineage of the Sacred Rose of the East 東聖玫 (Dōng Shèng Méi) is intertwined with the history of China. The so called Ancient School takes the name of Shēng Shù 生樹 (Vital Tree) and was officially born in the 2797 b.C. at the hands of Teng Ho 騰虹. It extends over a period of time between the 2797 b.C. and the 2297 b.C. and still remains shrouded in mystery. There is little information about it and in any case difficult to find, as it is a predominantly oral tradition.

Legend says that Teng Ho was the son of Fuxi and Nüwa, and that at the age of eight he arrived on earth, coming from other worlds, riding on an enormous flying dragon (Teng 騰)to guide humanity towards Liberation.  The goddess Guan Yin, his future consort, was waiting for him upon his arrival. The successors of Teng Ho called the Way traced by the master Shèng Méi 聖玫 (‘Sacred Rose’). The Dōng Shèng Méi can be symbolically described as a large tree, whose roots represent the Ancient School, the trunk the Sacred Rose and the foliage the Sacred Rose of the East, founded by the master Li Wang Ho in 736 b.C.

Li Wang Ho was born in Luoyang, in the Henan province, in 753 b.C. In 736 b.C., at just 17 years old, after he awakened, Li Wang was placed at the helm of the Sacred Rose. With his mastery the school took its final name of Dōng Shèng Méi. From then on, the subsequent masters designated to lead the School were all recognized as emanations of Li Wang Ho and they inherited his name. The only exception, the current master, Chien Teng Ho, who, having been identified as a manifestation of Teng Ho, took on the latter’s name.

The structure of the Sacred Rose of the East is organized in an ‘Internal Circle’ and an ‘External Circle’. The ‘External Circle’ is divided into two distinct areas: the ‘Great Sea’ (Dà Hǎi 大海) and the ‘Great Sky’ (Dà Tiān 大天). Also the ‘Internal Circle’  is divided into two distinct areas: the ‘Eight Treasures’ (八珍 Bā Zhēn), corresponding to the eight trigrams of the Bā-guà (Sky, Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, Lake, Thunder, Mountain) arranged, like the petals of a rose, around a center, the ‘Dōng Shèng’, symbolized by the head of a dragon.
The ‘Eight Treasures’ represent eight distinct schools, each with its own specific set of practices, which form an integral path, up to the threshold of the ‘Dōng Shèng’.

Chien Teng Ho 乾騰虹

Chien Teng Ho 乾騰虹 is the current Master at the helm of the Dōng Shèng Méi 東聖玫, the only ‘non-Chinese’ to have ever been part of that tradition, until his arrival. In 1983, at the age of eleven, during a trip to the north of England, where some relatives lived, he met in Preston an elderly man of Chinese origin, who became his mentor. His name was Li Wang Ho 李王虹 and he was at that time the master in charge of guiding the Dōng Shèng Méi, an ancient initiatory tradition, almost unknown in the West and surviving in the East mainly in southern China, in Hong Kong and in Taiwan. Because of the persecution of Mao Tze Tung regime, Li Wang Ho took refuge in England in the early 1950s, where he spent about fifty years of his life in the town of Preston, in a completely anonymous way, surrounded by some masters of the Dōng Shèng Méi and their students.

Chien Teng Ho was recognized by Li Wang Ho and the other masters of the the Master’s Council of the Dōng Shèng Méi, as manifestation of Teng Ho 騰虹, the legendary founder of the School. He was also identified as an emanation of the bodhisattva Dizáng 地藏and recognized as reincarnation of Tiān Lèi 天淚, a renowned Master of the Dōng Shèng Méi, associated to the ‘Sky’ 乾 trigram.