As the Wayfarer of the Infinite spoke, Wang Liping listened with rapt attention, in complete inner silence, anxious not to miss a single word. There were still some things, however, that he still couldn’t remember, some things he couldn’t understand. The Wayfarer of Pure Emptiness went over these points with him in detail, until Liping understood them clearly and had committed them to memory.
The Wayfarer of Pure Emptiness said, “The reason I have told you about ‘clarity of spirit’ beforehand is as a precaution. Whatever may appear, don’t let it scare you—you need to have clarity and sobriety of spirit. In the previous two steps, the scenes that appeared to you were all in your brain or were perceptions of inner vision. In this third step, inner energy radiates outward, so sensitive little animals will come to you following the energy, gathering around you. At this time, you must not by any means stir. Don’t be afraid, and don’t mind them— just let them be. Although the animals will come right up to you, they won’t hurt you. When you have finished your exercise, they will leave on their own. These little animals will mostly be rats, weasels, and certain birds. They are quite intelligent and also have an uncanny sensitivity. Some of them can even gaze into the sky and worship the moon, absorbing the vitality of the sun and the essence of the moon, cultivating some of the lesser methods of exercise by following nature. Just act as if nothing were happening. If you don’t provoke them, they won’t bother you.”
Hearing his mentor speak of such things, Wang Liping mused, “What a wonder this world is! Who would have thought that those little animals, which seem so cute to humans, also have this uncanny sensitivity. They too know how to research the mysteries of Nature and have thought of immortality. This is most interesting!”
After that Liping cultivated the “clear distinction of the real and the unreal” for a while. Once he had seen the structure of his body clearly, he then practiced the exercise of external radiation, and small animals actually did come gather around him, crouching nearby, as if they were listening to him tell interesting stories or sing charming songs.
Following his mentor’s advice, Liping paid the little creatures no mind. With thorough clarity of spirit, he firmly continued with his exercise. When he was done, each of the little animals went back to its lair, none of them disturbing another in any way. Every time he saw this happen, Liping felt like laughing, but in his heart he was taking another step toward understanding the mysteries of Nature.
Once the first three steps had been completed, his mentors introduced Liping to the fourth step, “knowing the way one is to go.”
What is the meaning of “knowing the way one is to go”? It is set on the foundation of collecting mind and nurturing essence, so that there are no random thoughts at all, and one has the ability to gaze inward and radiate outward; at this point it is necessary to advance further to consciously train thinking on a higher level.
The thinking done in this stage is not the deliberate constructive thinking done in the dark room, nor is it the imagery seen in the course of the inner gazing of the first two steps of the method of developing mental capacities. In this exercise, rather, a specific issue is taken up, its outcome is determined, and a method of resolution is presented.
This exercise of “knowing the way one is to go” is not random thinking; it is essential to start out by setting up the topic or the focal issue. Before you have gone through training in entering stillness, your brain is full of random thoughts, so even if you want to settle your mind down to think about a specific problem, it is very difficult to accomplish. But after you have gone through training in entering stillness, random thoughts are removed, and your brain power is ten, a hundred, even a thousand times better than what it was before. The topic that is brought up for this exercise is not pursued retrospectively, but rather prospectively. When the problems that come up in the course of life resist solution by ordinary means, and yet require resolution, they are now brought up in this present exercise, and then a way to solve them is sought. This training of brain power, or thinking, is called knowing the way one is to go.
The “way to go” refers to the immediate problem before you that calls for resolution; that is, of course, as a first step. When it comes to determining the way to go with more long-term and more far-reaching issues, further training is required. The first step of “knowing the way one is to go,” nevertheless, is the basic accomplishment, which is extremely important for future development.
The core principle of the method of developing mental capacities is to use it for curing illnesses and helping people, so “knowing the way one is to go” is mainly used for healing. When a daytime examination does not yield a clear picture of an illness or a way of curing it, then this exercise is done at midnight, bringing up the particular problem to make a close examination of symptoms and find a way to treat it.
As Wang Liping put his teachers’ instructions into practice step by step, his brain power developed greatly. He was not merely beyond his peers in this respect, but even more advanced than adults. Not only was schoolwork a breeze for him; he had no trouble considering and resolving real problems of life in the world.
But Liping was not only intelligent; he was smart. Whenever he was with other people, he just went along with the flow cheerfully, keeping his true attainments concealed, so that people thought of him as an ordinary youth.
As for the three old Taoist wizards, they devoted a lot of attention to this process. A hundred years of human development, it is said, still just stabilizes the roots. Although Liping was making progress in learning the inner exercises, he had not yet even begun to learn external exercises.
Inner and external exercises, at their most advanced, both make an issue of subtlety and refinement. The subtle is the recondite, the infinitesimal, the signal of an event, the key to something. The refined is the minute, the profound, the quintessential. The Traditions on the Changes says, “The Changes are means by which sages find out the profound and investigate the subtle.” It also says, “Cultivated people act on seeing the subtle, not waiting all day.” And also, “Cultivated people know the subtle and the obvious, the soft and the hard.” Lao-tzu said, “Skilled warriors of old were subtle, mysteriously effective, so deep they were inscrutable.” Guan-tzu said, “Thought does not only cognize the coarse; it sees into the subtle, so it is the vital essence of development.”
The point of subtlety and refinement is the cultivation of essence and life. Make the slightest error and you miss out completely. If you do not see into the subtle and refined, you cannot reach the sublime realms. With the idea of fostering subtlety and refinement in their young charge, the three old masters next put Wang Liping through more special training.
First Liping was shut inside a large wooden box. This box was constructed specially for this training exercise. It was as tall as Liping himself, with a bit of leeway around the front, back, and sides. The upper part, however, was studded with spikes several inches long. To avoid being stuck by the spikes, Liping had to stand in the center without moving. As if this were not enough, the old masters added yet another obstacle.
When Liping got into the box, he examined it very carefully. Using the ability he had developed in quiet sitting over the past few months, he stood immobile inside the box, thinking this was not so hard as sitting cross-legged in fact, it was more comfortable than sitting. Little did he suspect that the mentors were then going to hoist the whole box up into a tree and let it hang there, swaying in the wind.
There was no room for the youth to divide his attention as he concentrated totally on maintaining his balance inside the box, to avoid getting stuck by the spikes. Carefully studying the subtle relationships among the movements of the wind, the tree, the box, and his own body, Liping gradually discovered a sort of regularity. Then he no longer had