Tales of the Taoist Immortals (18 page)
Read Tales of the Taoist Immortals Online
Authors: Eva Wong
Lin L
ING-SU
lived during the latter part of the Sung dynasty (960–1279
CE
). It is said that he predicted the kidnapping of the Sung emperor and the fall of the dynasty.
PART FIVE
34
Chang Po-tuan
Chang Po-tuan was interested in Buddhism and Taoism even when he was child. He read any book he could get ahold of, but his favorite texts were those on meditation and the arts of longevity.
Not attracted to a career in the civil service, Po-tuan went to the T’ien-tai Mountains to study meditation with a Buddhist monk.
When he was almost sixty years old, Chang Po-tuan met a Taoist from Szechwan by the name of Liu Hai-ch’an and
began to practice the Taoist techniques of cultivating body and mind.
Po-tuan had a friend who was a Zen Buddhist. The two men often met to meditate together and discuss Buddhist and Taoist philosophy. One day, the friend, whose Buddhist name was Hui-ting, went to Po-tuan’s retreat and said, “I have mastered the technique of spirit travel. When I enter meditative stillness, I can send my spirit anywhere I want.”
Po-tuan proposed, “Shall we travel somewhere together today?”
“My pleasure!” replied Hui-ting.
“Where shall we go?” asked Po-tuan.
“How about the gardens in Yang county?” suggested his friend. “I’ve heard that the flowers there are beautiful at this time of year.”
The two men sat on their meditation cushions, closed their eyes, and sent their spirits to the flower gardens of Yang county. When Po-tuan arrived, he found his friend already sitting on a bench. Hui-ting remarked, “I’ve already walked around the garden three times.”
Po-tuan only said, “Why don’t we each take a flower back as a souvenir?”
Hui-ting nodded. The friends walked through the garden and each plucked a flower.
Back in Po-tuan’s retreat, the two men opened their eyes and stretched their legs.
“Where’s your flower?” Po-tuan asked his friend. Hui-ting could not find his. Po-tuan then reached into his sleeve and brought out a beautiful chrysanthemum.
At first, Hui-ting was disappointed, but then he laughed and said, “I’m glad one of us was able to bring back a flower.” Po-tuan gave the flower to his friend and said, “I
know you appreciate flowers. Take this one home in memory of the good time we had today.”
Later, when Hui-ting had left, Po-tuan’s students asked, “Why couldn’t Hui-ting bring back a flower?”
Their teacher replied, “Hui-ting cultivated his mind alone. Therefore, when he entered stillness, he could liberate only his spirit. As a result, the entire journey was in his mind. On the other hand, I cultivate both mind and body. When my spirit travels, it can take on corporeal form and influence reality. That’s why I could bring back a flower and he couldn’t.”
When Chang Po-tuan was about to shed his body and enter the immortal realm, he called his students together and said, “After I have gone, you should cremate my body.” At ninety-nine years of age, he sent his spirit into the immortal realm. After the students cremated his body, they found among the ashes thousands of tiny fragments of bones that glowed with a golden hue.
C
HANG
P
O-TUAN
lived during the early part of the Sung dynasty (960–1279
CE
). He is one of the greatest exponents of the Southern Complete Reality School and is the author of the famous internal-alchemical classic
Wu-chen p’ien (Understanding Reality).
35
Chang San-feng
Chang San-feng’s original name was Chang Chun-pao. His parents were poor, so they sent him to the Shaolin Buddhist monastery to become a monk.
Chun-pao was a talented apprentice: by fourteen, he had mastered the Shaolin martial arts, as well as Zen meditation. However, despite these accomplishments, he felt that there was something missing in his training. Thus, at the age of fifteen, he decided to leave Shaolin to look for other teachers.
During his travels, Chun-pao met an immortal named
Huo-lung (Fire Dragon) who taught him the arts of gathering, cultivating, and circulating internal energy.
As Chun-pao’s cultivation progressed, his appearance changed. His head began to resemble that of a tortoise and his bones became as light as a crane’s. His ears grew and his eyes shone with an inner glow. Summer and winter, he wore a hemp robe and straw sandals.
Chang Chun-pao visited many famous mountains where Taoist hermits had settled, but did not find a place to his liking. Once, when he was a guest at the Golden Altar Monastery, he fell asleep and did not wake up for a month. Thinking that he had passed away, his friends bought a casket and performed the funeral rites. Suddenly, Chun-pao sat up and demanded, “Why have you put me in a coffin?”
After this incident, he went to Szechwan and settled on Mount T’ai-ho. He built a hut in the shelter of an ancient grove and spent much of his time in meditation. By then, he was immune to hunger and thirst.
One day, Chang Chun-pao heard a commotion outside his retreat. He looked out of the window and saw a monkey and a snake fighting in front of his hut. As he watched the movements of the combatants, he saw that while the snake had the advantage of speed and flexibility, the monkey had the advantage of agility. “Each animal has its natural ability to defend itself,” he observed. “If humans could learn the best of each animal’s style of fighting and combine them into one form, what a powerful form of martial art that would be!”
For several years, Chun-pao worked hard to develop a martial art that combined the fighting abilities of various animals. However, after he had created a seemingly invincible fighting style, he still felt it was incomplete.
One day, while walking in the Wu-tang Mountains,
Chang Chun-pao looked into a valley and saw leaves whipped into a spiral by the wind. He then looked at the sky and saw clouds swirling around the jagged peaks. Finally, he realized that the forces of the Tao far outweigh the abilities of animals and humans and said to himself, “The aim of the martial arts is not to subdue and conquer opposing forces but to dissolve, deflect, and absorb them.”
Chang Chun-pao built a hermitage in the Wu-tang Mountains and began to develop another form of martial art, one based on neutralizing and transforming opposing forces. Using the principles of the Tao as manifested in nature, he called the method T’ai-Ch’i Ch’uan.
One day, while wandering around the mountains of Wu-tang, Chang Chun-pao saw a rock formation that resembled three peaks pointing up to the sky. Taken by the view, he said, “From now on, my name will be Chang San-feng (Three Peaks).”
Chang San-feng lived in the mountains for twenty-three years. One day, when he was about a hundred years old, he suddenly left his hermitage and was never seen again.
C
HANG
S
AN-FENG
lived from the end of the Yüan dynasty (1271–1368
CE
) into the Ming dynasty (1368–1644
CE
). He founded the Wu-tang sect, wrote numerous treatises on internal alchemy, and is considered by many to be the originator of T’ai-Chi Ch’uan.
36
The Woman Who Could Turn Minerals into Gold
Cheng Wei’s Wife
Cheng Wei loved the Taoist alchemical arts and married a woman with similar interests. The couple built two laboratories in a quiet corner of their estate where, in their spare time, they would experiment with making the pill of immortality and turning mercury into gold.
One day, Cheng Wei hurried home and said to his wife, “The emperor has invited all the officials of this district to a banquet, and I don’t have a proper robe for the occasion.
Even if we bought the materials immediately, I don’t think we could get someone to finish it in time. What should I do? My whole career in the government depends on this audience with the emperor.”
His wife answered, “Don’t worry. The robe will be ready for you immediately.” She waved her arm and two bolts of satin materialized on the table. When she pointed at the cloth, the material was transformed into an elegant robe.
Cheng Wei was very happy, but secretly he was jealous of his wife’s magical abilities.
Another time, Cheng Wei had worked all night in his laboratory trying to transform mercury into gold and had gotten no results. Returning to his room tired and disappointed, he happened to walk past his wife’s laboratory. As he looked through the window, he saw something gleaming in her hands. Bursting into his wife’s laboratory, Cheng Wei cried, “You have had the secrets of making gold all this time and didn’t tell me!”