Tales of the Taoist Immortals (20 page)

P
AI
Y
Ü
-
CH
’an lived during the latter part of the Sung dynasty (960–1279
CE
). He is the fifth patriarch of the Southern Complete Reality School. His writings on the arts of longevity and immortality are collected in the
Pai Yü-ch’an ch’üan-chi (The Collected Works of Pai Yü-ch’an).

39

Lady of the Great Yin

T’ai-yin Nü

T’ai-yin Nü loved the Taoist arts of immortality from the time she was a child. When she could not find someone to instruct her, she said to herself, “I’ll study by myself. If it is in my destiny, then someday I’ll find a teacher.”

The years passed, and T’ai-yin Nü still had not found a teacher. “I’ll set up a wine shop in the marketplace,” she thought. “Maybe I’ll meet a teacher there.”

Several more years went by. Nü waited patiently. She built a retreat at the edge of town and spent her spare time meditating and experimenting with elixirs of immortality.

One morning, a man came to her shop to buy a flask of wine. Noticing that the woman who served him was well mannered and intelligent, he said, “You walk the path of the white tiger and snake; I walk the path of the green dragon and black tortoise. In this world, who can understand this?”

When T’ai-yin Nü heard this, she was delighted. She asked the man, “What is the numeric of the element earth?”

He replied, “I don’t know the numeric of the element earth, but south is three, north is five, east is nine, west is seven, and the center is one.”

“You are a man of honor and virtue,” exclaimed Nü. “I asked you about one thing and you gave me answers for five. Please come to my hermitage for a meal and tell me more about the Tao.”

T’ai-yin Nü closed her shop and boarded up the windows; she knew that she would never return to the marketplace.

That evening during dinner, her guest said to her, “My name is T’ai-yang Tzu and I am a subordinate of the celestial lords. I have drunk the water of the sacred light; I have ascended to the North Star; and my body has the five treasures. In acknowledging me as a virtuous man, you have become a part of my family.”

T’ai-yang Tzu stayed at T’ai-yin Nü’s retreat for several days and taught her the arts of immortality. Before he left, he told her, “Continue to practice your meditation. Fly to the stars to receive instructions from the celestial lords. They will let you know when the elixir is ready.”

One day, T’ai-yin Nü saw a purple vapor rising from the cauldron. Intuitively she knew the elixir was ready. She poured it into a cup, drank it, and floated up to the sky. At
that time, she was almost two hundred years old, but her appearance resembled that of a young woman.

T’
AI-YIN
N
Ü
probably lived during the T’ang dynasty (618–906
CE
). Not much else is known about her.

40

Father of Immortal Alchemy

Wei Po-yang

Wei Po-yang was a native of southeast China. Even as a child, he was attracted to the alchemical arts of immortality. At the age of eighteen, he went into the mountains, built a laboratory, and experimented with making the pill of immortality.

Po-yang had three students. Two were intelligent and devious; the third was dim-witted but sincere. The master knew that his intelligent students were suspicious and
greedy: they only wanted to attain immortality and did not care how they did it. So, when he succeeded in making the pill of immortality, he decided to test his three apprentices.

Wei Po-yang called his students together and said, “I think I have succeeded in making the pill of immortality, but before we take it, we should test it on the dog.”

Po-yang opened the lid of the cauldron, took out one of the pills, and gave it to the dog. Minutes later, the dog fell over and stopped breathing. Wei Po-yang sighed and said, “It is the will of heaven.”

The two intelligent students looked at each other, then at their teacher, and said, “It looks like we’ve failed again.” Wei Po-yang replied, “The pill may have a different effect on humans. We won’t know its true effect until one of us takes it.”

When none of the students volunteered, Wei Po-yang said, “I will give it a try.” After swallowing the pill, he too fell down and stopped breathing.

The two intelligent students said to each other, “Our teacher has died from this pill. It would be stupid for us to take it and die as well. After all, our goal is to attain immortality. If we can’t become immortal, then we should go home.” They went into the laboratory, gathered their belongings, and made their way down the mountain.

The dim-witted student stood and looked at the cauldron for a long time. Then he said to himself, “My teacher has always been a cautious man. He wouldn’t take a pill that would kill him.” Slowly, he reached into the cauldron, picked up a pill, and swallowed it. Then he sat on a rock and waited. Suddenly, Wei Po-yang stood up, laughed, and patted the student on his back. Moments later, the dog also stood up and ran to his master.

Wei Po-yang soon began to feel weightless. When he
took a step, he found himself floating up to the sky. Flying up close behind him were his student and the dog. The three were spotted by the apprentices who had decided to leave their teacher. The two students hurried back to the laboratory, but when they got there, the fire in the furnace was out and there was nothing left in the cauldron.

W
EI
P
O
-
YANG
lived during the latter part of the Han dynasty (206
BCE
–219
CE
). He is regarded as the father of the alchemical arts of immortality and is the author of the first Taoist alchemical text,
Tsan-tung-chi (Triplex Unity).

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