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Source: "Taoism, the road to Immortality", by John Blofield, Shambala Publications, Boston, 2000


Breaking Down the Walls-- Internal Exlir #2

        This story of immortals is very different from the others, being

no legend but a factual account of the attainment of immortality in

the true Taoist sense of that word. I heard it years ago from a

Taoist of Mount Heng and, though I cannot recall the actual

examples he gave me of the 'double talk' with which Taoists clothe

their secrets, I can vouch for the closeness of my version to the

original in spirit if not in detail. The recluse who related the story,

told me that he was a 'third generation spiritual descendent' of the

White Heron Immortal.



        In the reign of the Hsien Feng Emperor (1851-62), there lived on

the slopes of Mount Heng a recluse known as the Narrow-Waisted-

Gourd Immortal, more commonly called Hulu Weng, the Gourd

Ancient One, or it may have been Hu Lao-weng which has the same

meaning. Besides a few middle-aged disciples, he was attended by

two children who were supposed to be boys, though some said they

were his granddaughters, the offspring of a son conceived before he

retired from the world of dust. Strangers coming to pay their

respects were invariably received by one of these children, who had

some skill in distinguishing false from real. Those whom the

children reported to be unlike followers of the Way were generally

told that the Immortal, being deep in meditation, might not be able

to receive them for several days to come. If, however, these guests

persisted and asked that lodging be provided until such a time as the

Immortal found it convenient to bestow some of his precious time

on them, then coolness vanished and they were made welcome.

Perhaps their desire would be fulfilled that very evening, the

Immortal suddenly emerging from his inner chamber, crying: 'Well,

well. How may an old and ignorant fellow serve Your Honours ?'



        One day there arrived from the capital a scholar surnamed Pai who,

at the age of 30, was already a little stooped and short-sighted from

too much study of the Confucian classics. He seemed at once dis-

traught and impatient, so it was just as well that the little girls

reported favourably on the state of his heart and mind. Upon

coming into the Immortal's presence, he was with difficulty re-

strained from kneeling and knocking his head on the floor as before

a Confucian dignitary. 'I come to Your Immortality', he cried, 'as a

very last resort. Either you must show me the face of truth or I shall

dispatch myself here and now to the yellow springs with the help of

my silken girdle.



        All my life I have been searching for truth, pouring

over the classics, listening to so-called sages in vain and cultivating

the company of eminent Confucian scholars. A brilliant official

career lay before me until, all of a sudden, I realised that all that

talk of benevolence, filial piety and propriety is so much claptrap!

What can li [propriety] conceivably have to do with the Great Way ?

Does cultivating the Tao require that we walk or bow in this way or

that ? Of course not! Your Immortality must help me to make up

quickly for wasting my whole life upon such nonsense!'



        Impressed by his sincerity, the Gourd Immortal invited this

official to stay for a while and receive 'such poor teaching as an

ignorant old fellow has to give'. Pai was delighted, but the next day

a horrible disappointment awaited him, for the Immortal spoke to

him in terms that seemed utterly at variance with his own con-

ception of sagehood and wisdom. This was the substance of Hulu

Weng's first lesson to the bewildered scholar:



        'I cannot describe to you the indescribable, but I can teach you

several by no means inconsiderable arts - invisibility, flying without

wings, invulnerability to sword or serpent's fang - you know the

kind of thing. Here, then, is your syllabus of study. Seeking the

Mysterious Portal, you must first provide yourself with the where-

withal to bribe the guards and render yourself invisible that you may

slip through unnoticed. That sort of thing is not to be mastered in a

day. Next you will have to learn how to fly thence to the courts of

heaven, make your way to the central chamber, surprise Lord Lao

[Lao-tzu] at breakfast, snatch up his flask of golden elixir, slay those

who will come running in to rescue it, break down the walls of the

sky-castle and return to earth an immortal! A man of your determin-

ation has but to follow my course of instruction to be certain of

success.'



        Hoping with all his heart that the Immortal was just having a little

joke at his expense, Pai gazed at him earnestly, trying to read his

expression. Alas, his face was calm and solemn, and his eyes shone

with an unearthly lustre that made Pai wonder if he were not dealing

with a dangerous fanatic. Had he travelled post-haste from the

capital, scarcely dismounting for weeks on end, forgetful of food and

sleep, merely to be told the kind of nonsense that any child can find

for himself in the sort of books he borrows from servants without

letting his parents know? The thought was intolerable. The next

day, long before dawn, he rose and packed his few belongings,

meaning to slip away without having to make embarrassing excuses.

He was just tying up his bundle when one of the little girls came in

with a pot of tea. Seeing how things were, she smiled and said:



        'Please, Uncle, do not leave us so soon. If you do, I shall get the

blame for not looking after you properly. You would not like that to

happen, would you. Uncle? I know why you are angry. The Im-

mortal said something you did not like, isn't it so ? Have you never

heard of mountain divinities pretending to be horrible red-tongued

demons just to test the pilgrims' courage ? You wouldn't be taken in,

would you. Uncle ?'



        Rather than cause trouble for the friendly child, Pai decided to

delay his departure for a few days, since it would be quite impossible

to admit the true cause of his wanting to leave. Meanwhile the

lessons continued, arousing such interest that the few days became

many and, in the end, Pai never left the hermitage again, staying

there in all for some seventy or eighty years!



        Since a prerequisite for flying without wings is weightlessness, the

first lessons were directed at 'throwing things away'. Unlike many

others, Pai had discarded greed and ambition before coming to the

mountain, but he still had cumbersome baggage to be disposed of -

excessive ardour, for example, over-eagerness to succeed and over-

anxiety lest he fail. He was taught to lose all sense of hurry, to

subdue his tendency to strain. He had to learn to let himself be

borne along like a floating cloud on the ch'i of heaven. Simul-

taneously, he set himself to acquire the art of invisibility. For this,

stillness was required and the capacity to be as unobtrusive as a

lizard on a branch, mingling with the pilgrims who came on festival

days - there, yet unnoticed. The bribe to be offered to the guard-

ians of the Mysterious Portal turned out to be a vow that, if the

golden elixir were won, Pai would not depart into final bliss before

founding and nursing a line of disciples capable of passing on

the recipe for immortality to future generations. As to the Portal

itself, he learnt that it stands in a region known as the Precious

Square Inch lying just behind the mid-point between the eyes. There

came a day when he could at any time behold the rays of heavenly

light that are forever streaming through this gate but remain

invisible until the adept has learnt how to develop his inner seeing.

Learning to fly proved the longest and most arduous task, requiring



        that his physical endowments - semen and subtle essence, breath

and blended personal and cosmic vitality, spirit both personal and

cosmic - be transmuted into a spirit-body able to soar, during

meditation, beyond the stars. Entering the courts of heaven meant

achieving at will a state of ecstatic trance. Passing into the central

chamber was the fruit of a yoga for drawing up the final product of

blended essence, vitality and spirit from the region below the heart

to the ni wan cavity just below the top of the skull; snatching the

golden elixir from Lord Lao meant causing the perfected elixir to

descend (and reascend) the central psychic channel running between

the pelvis and the ni wan. Slaying the guardians was a term for coun-

tering the illusory ego's final struggles to retain the recognition

hitherto given to it as an individual entity. Breaking down the walls

was the supreme act, destruction of the last barriers between the

adept's being and the Source of Being, so as to attain immortality in

the true and only meaningful sense of those words. It signified, in

fact, 'return to the Source', the be all and end all of Taoist endeav-

our, of cultivation of the Way!



        The former Confucian scholar, having by devoted labour and with

the unstinted help of his teacher attained to immortal state within a

mere decade of his distraught arrival, was destined to make the Gourd

Immortal's hermitage his permanent home. Its former owner, before

'soaring among the stars on the back of a dragon', confirmed Pai as

his spiritual successor. Pupils of Pai's pupils were still to be found

there in the 1930s and it was probably their pupils who were turned

away when the red tide reached Mount Heng around 1950!