teacher passed away, Changchun traveled to Mount Zhongnan, an ancient center of spiritual studies.
Arriving in the dead of winter, Changchun was snowed in for five days and nights, holed up in a little shrine. In danger of starving or freezing to death, Changchun entered into a deep trance.
In the midst of his profound abstraction, Changchun suddenly heard a voice. Looking up, he saw an old man standing in front of him, bearing a gift of food. Placing the offering before Changchun, the old man turned and walked away.
Following the ancient to the door of the shrine, Changchun looked out to see nothing but a vast expanse of virgin snow. There was not a single footprint. When the snows had receded and travel was again possible, Changchun continued his journey westward, until he came to a huge valley known as Fa River Valley. The riverbed was very wide, and the water alternately rose so high and fell so low that it was impossible to build a bridge or establish a ferry. As a result, travelers had to wade across the river. Seeing the dangers to which people were thus exposed, Changchun resolved to stay there and serve travelers by carrying them across the river on his shoulders.
Fixing up an ancient shrine by the waterside, for six years Changchun lived there by the river, spending the nights in meditation and the days carrying travelers over the water.
During this period of time, Changchun experienced what Taoists call the Great Death no less than seven times, and went through what they call Minor Death countless times. Dying and returning to life, he succeeded in transcending the ordinary world of people, events, and things.
The grand master concluded his talk with these words: “Our spiritual ancestor Changchun had a saying: ‘When not a single thought is produced, that is freedom; where there is nothing on the mind, that is immortal enlightenment.’ This is how intensely the spiritual immortals and celestial wizards cultivated and trained themselves!”
Then the old man turned to Wang Liping and asked, “Were you listening?” Startled out of his reverie, the boy replied that he had indeed been listening. The old man asked him what he had understood from the stories.
Liping replied with clear assurance, “Only with a sincere heart and a firm will is it possible to learn the Way and develop real potential.”
The three old men smiled. The eldest master asked the boy, “Do you want to study the Way?”
“Yes,” replied Liping in a most serious and determined tone of voice, “but I don’t know how. I don’t have a teacher to guide me.” He still hadn’t realized just who the three old men were.
The grand master said, “If you want to study the Way, don’t worry about not having a teacher. Who do you think we are? I am the sixteenth-generation Transmitter of Changchun’s teaching, and these two with me are the seventeenth-generation Transmitters. Now that we’re old, we want to hand on what we’ve learned. If you want to learn the Way, just be ready to work hard. Otherwise, how can you rise above the ordinary human condition? The first requirement for learning the Way is hard work; then you need to learn to be a member of society, which means doing good and refraining from evil, building up character. When you have developed virtue and built up character, eventually you enter naturally into the Way.”
By now the three old wizards had satisfied themselves that Wang Liping did in fact have the potential, and that the timing was right. As in all things, however, they had to begin from the beginning, bringing the disciple along gradually in order to develop penetrating realization.
The Scripture of Eternal Purity and Calm says,
The Way includes clarity and opacity, movement and stillness. The sky is clear, the earth is opaque; the sky is in motion, the earth is still. The masculine is clear, the feminine is opaque; the masculine is active, the feminine is still. Descending from the root to flow into the branches, these produce myriad beings. Clarity is the source of opacity, movement is the foundation of stillness. If people can be clear and calm, the whole universe will come to them.
The human spirit likes clarity, but the mind disturbs it. The human mind likes calm, but desires pull it. If you can always put your desires aside, your mind will naturally become calm; clarify your mind, and your spirit will naturally become calm.
The difficulty in putting this teaching into practice lies in “setting aside desire, clarifying the mind, and entering into stillness.” This is particularly hard in the present day, when so many material and human resources are devoted to serving an endless procession of desires and ambitions, without ever really satisfying them, and without ever getting an objective understanding of the effects of this whole process on human society and its relationship to Nature.
The first exercise the old masters taught Wang Liping, therefore, was a practice called “repentance.” What this means in the context of Taoism is cleaning the mind, clearing away mundane influences already infecting the consciousness, getting rid of the rubbish.
The way this is done is by temporary isolation and self-examination. The process is subdivided into three parts. First the disciple stays in a dark room for two months with nothing to do. This is supposed to gradually reduce the crudity and wildness in one’s nature. The second stage of practice involves sitting still in a dark room for set periods of time, which are progressively lengthened. In the third stage, the disciple is shifted to an ordinary quiet room and required to sit still for at least four hours at a time.
One morning after breakfast, instead of going to school Wang Liping headed straight for the abode of the three old Taoist masters. By this time, Taoism interested the youth more than school did. He found the old men still engrossed in their morning meditations. In spite of their advanced age, the old wizards had youthful faces and dark hair. Their eyes shone with an uncanny light. Liping sat down to join in their exercise, but the grand master stopped him with a question: “Are you really positive you want to study Taoism with us? Are you sure you won’t change you mind?”
Liping insisted that he was most assuredly determined to proceed. So the grand master continued. “Once you have set your heart on learning the Way,” he said, “you must start from the beginning. Remember that you must not fear hardships. Today we will teach you the first lesson, which involves no explanation of principles, only actual practice. You must do as I say, for if you fail this lesson you needn’t come around looking for us anymore.” The old man was firm. With only this brief introduction, he had the youth follow him to the shed they had cleaned out for this exercise.
Pointing into the dark room, the grand master told Liping, “Go inside and stay quiet. Don’t start whining to get out, because we’re not going to let you out no matter what.” With that, the old wizard pushed the boy inside and locked the door.
Wang Liping had never thought the old man would actually do this. The shed was completely empty and totally dark. He couldn’t see a thing. Figuring the old man was testing his sincerity and would let him out sooner or later, the boy decided to wait it out calmly.
Easier said than done. After a while Liping began pacing around, groping along the walls after crashing into them a few times. Pacing around until he worked up a sweat, he sat down to rest. Then he got up and started pacing around again. As he kept repeating this over and over, his anxiety mounted; the morning seemed like a year.
Suddenly the door opened a crack, and a beam of light blinded the youth inside. He heard an old man calling him to come out, and he emerged, rubbing his eyes. The boy was extremely upset, but he pretended as if nothing had happened.
Wang Jiaoming asked him, “Can you take more, boy?”
Liping thought the
