One clear moonlit night the Wayfarer of the Infinite called off the midnight exercises. Instead he led the other wizards and their young apprentice down the mountain to a hill at a bend in the river. Gazing fixedly for a while, at length the Wayfarer turned to his disciples and said, “Do you see the energy in this hill?” The other two Wayfarers replied that they saw a blue energy, very powerful.
Now the old master said to Wang Liping, “This spot is very good. Yin and yang energies merge and combine here. When pure energy is rising on a mountain, that is the best condition for refinement work. Let’s do our exercise here.” Then the grand master gave Liping a detailed account of the method for practicing with mountains. When he had finished, all four of them began the exercise.
Wang Liping had been taught methods of developing mental capacities and had already attained the minor cycle; the aperture of his celestial eye was opened, and he had also successfully practiced various methods of equilibrium exercise. Now as he practiced this teaching tonight, after just two hours he had already seen the blue energy rising over the mountain, gazing with his celestial eye. As he used this energy to develop himself, the power in his body grew in a rapid spurt. After four hours had passed and the four of them had concluded the exercise, Liping told the old wizards that he had really seen the energy and had made tremendous gains from working with it.
One day the Wayfarer of Pure Serenity took Wang Liping to a small reservoir, where he had already prepared a large plank. The Wayfarer had Liping sit cross-legged on the plank, then eased it out into the water, where it gradually came to a stop in the middle of the reservoir. Liping sat on the plank in a state of silence, doing inner work; following his mentor’s instructions, he raised his work to a whole new level.
After four hours had passed, and the Wayfarer was sure that Liping had reached the right state, he disturbed the surface of the water with his hand, sending a wave of ripples toward the center of the reservoir. When the ripples approached the plank, Wang Liping’s reflection in the water was shattered; he himself just felt a shudder in the heart, and his body stirred. When the ripples had passed, the surface of the water again became smooth as ever, and Liping’s body and mind returned to their former state of quietude. The Wayfarer tested him in this way several times, and Liping successfully sensed the ripples each time. Seeing that his attainment was quite deep, the Wayfarer had Liping conclude the exercise and paddle in to shore. The young apprentice told his mentor all about the sensations he’d had on the water, finding it quite beyond his understanding.
When they had returned to the wizards’ abode, Wang Liping was finally given an explanation of the principle of this exercise. As the youth practiced paired cultivation work with all sorts of things and beings, his inner and outer accomplishments grew together. Now the yang celestial soul and the yin earthly soul in his body had both been strengthened and sensitized. From the point of view of ordinary people, shadows and reflections are unreal, things that have form but not substance, of no value to the human being. From the Taoist point of view, however, these “unreal shadows and reflections with form but no substance” also have ethereal force, which can be felt by the human body on contact. People who have not been refined by inner work are insensitive to these impressions, but those of high attainment can sense even such subtleties quite clearly. This is why Liping’s body and mind stirred when his reflection was disturbed in the water. When one gets to the “middle three realms,” shadows and reflections are no longer insubstantial forms; now they not only have form, they also have substance. This is the principle underlying the practice of curing illness by working on people’s shadows, as Wang Liping later learned from his mentor.
At this point, Liping reviewed the “eight trigram mental balls” taught him by his mentor, practicing over and over again. Once he had built up from one to nine energy balls of different colors, they whirled around his body, above and below, left and right. Wang Liping determined the positions of the eight trigrams, set a fixed direction and order, and then ran from one position to the next, so lightly and swiftly that he virtually flew, his upper body remaining erect and balanced throughout, blending different hand positions and different breathing patterns into an infinitely varied flux, while those nine colored energy balls revolved around him, above and below, left and right, according to regular patterns.
Once he was capable of doing this, Wang Liping was able to mentally extract his own internal organs, whirl them around in the air, massage them, and put them back into his gut. This exercise, which strengthens the internal organs, is simply inconceivable to an ordinary person without the requisite mental training.
As Liping cultivated the three realms intensely, his accomplishments became finer day by day. The Wayfarer of Pure Serenity also transmitted to him methods of exercise while sleeping and natural circulation of energy, part of the Spiritual Jewels techniques for developing mental capacities.
Sleeping exercise is one of three kinds of Taoist work, to be done at leisure. The practitioner is physically in a sleeping position, but mentally in an active state, so that it is possible to work even while sleeping. “The body is still, but the mind is in movement,” attention inducing energy to flow, stabilizing the spirit and strengthening the body. Sleeping exercise is divided into eleven forms; when a certain degree of efficiency is attained in each form, then they are combined into a total system, which produces an equilibrium of yin and yang throughout the whole body.
The method of natural energy circulation is one of the auxiliary techniques of the Spiritual Jewels system. It is also called the method of natural absorption of energy. There are no limitations of time or place in doing this practice, but it is best to do it where there are lots of flowers and trees and fresh air.
The basic method of work is to walk naturally, with matching attention and breathing. For example, one walks three steps with each inhalation, and three steps with each exhalation. After this pattern of breathing becomes natural, then one increases to six steps with each inhalation and six steps with each exhalation. The ratio is further increased, to twelve, then twenty-four steps with each inhalation and each exhalation, in such a way that both walking and breathing remain natural and relaxed, without any sense of strain.
Once this practice has been mastered, another method of training is introduced. Now one walks three steps while breathing in, three steps holding the breath, and three steps breathing out. This pattern of inhaling, stopping, exhaling, and stopping is repeated over and over, while walking according to the prescribed pattern. When that has been mastered, then the period of energy circulation is again increased, so that one walks six steps inhaling, six steps holding the breath, six steps exhaling, and another six steps holding the breath. Then this is again increased until one can go twelve steps, then up to twenty four steps, with each interval.
Just as the circulation of energy through breathing is matched with walking, the thought must also be matched. When breathing in, one imagines breath-energy being absorbed through the skin from all directions. When breathing out, one imagines breath-energy radiating out from the whole body in all directions. When holding the breath after inhaling, one imagines the body has become a single whole. When holding the breath after exhaling, one imagines one is in the clouds.
As Wang Liping followed the instructions given him by his mentor, he was able to use both walking and sleeping for doing exercises, plunging his whole body and mind into continual inner work.
Delighted to see their young apprentice making such progress in his training, the old wizards took him deeper into the mysteries of Taoism. Liping had already learned basic principles such as the Infinite, yin and yang, the three fundamentals, the four forms, the five elements, the six energies, the seven treasures, the eight trigrams, the nine chambers, and so on. He also knew the ideas of old Taoist classics like Lao-tzu and Chuangtzu, and had even memorized some of the most important passages. The old wizards, the grand master, and the two mentors now began to teach him about many important texts in the Taoist canon, such as the The I Ching or Book of Changes, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, the Book of Hidden Correspondences, the Book of the Yellow Court, and the Book of Pure Serenity. They also talked about the ancient Taoist adepts, their practices, activities, and teachings.
In school,