The teachers had found their disciple. And the future Transmitter of Dragon Gate Taoism had found his guides. So in the autumn of 1962 Wang Liping began a course of apprenticeship in Taoist wizardry that was to last for fifteen years.
2
Refining the Mind
Even though the three Taoist wizards sat and talked among themselves, appearing to ignore the young visitor, they were covertly examining him with their inner perceptions. Ascertaining that the boy suffered from chronic migraine and eye trouble, the old masters set about curing him without making any overt indication of what they were doing.
In a gradual manner, Wang Liping became aware of an exceptional clarity of mind, and his eyesight also cleared. Now he knew those three old men were most certainly not ordinary people.
For their part, once the old masters had gotten a good look at Wang Liping, they realized he was indeed the one they had been seeing in their visions over the last three years, the one they had been looking for. Wang Liping was destined to become the eighteenth-generation Transmitter of Dragon Gate Taoism.
The eldest of the three men sat quietly for a while with his eyes closed. Then he slowly opened his eyes and turned his gaze to young Liping. “Hey there, schoolboy! It’s getting late, and you’re a long way from home! Aren’t you afraid of walking back in the dark?”
Without thinking the youth replied, “Afraid of what? When I play hide-and-seek with my friends, the darker it gets the more fun it is! What’s there to be afraid of?”
The three elders were delighted. Gu Jiaoyi pulled Wang Liping to him and said, “Come on, play hide-and-seek with us!” Taking him outside to a graveyard not far away, the men challenged the boy to a game of hide-and-seek, telling him they’d consider him the winner if he found even one of them out there in the darkness.
Liping readily accepted the challenge. He passed by there every day and knew every detail of the terrain; he thought there was no way the old men could hide from him.
The boy covered his eyes and began to count, waiting for the old men to hide. But Zhang Hodao pulled him over and said, “No need for that. Just stand here with your eyes open and watch us go hide. Watch carefully—we won’t go far!”
But the elders just stood there, so Liping urged them to go hide. They still didn’t move, but a voice said, “Better take a close look—we’ve already hidden!”
Hearing this, Liping strained his eyes to look, but couldn’t find a trace of the old men. How could they have disappeared even as they were speaking? Why didn’t their footsteps make any sound? Liping began to look all over the area, searching every nook and cranny, anywhere that someone could hide. Nothing. Not a sound. The whole place was deserted. Thoroughly stumped, after nearly an hour the boy returned to the tree where the game had started. There the old men suddenly appeared before him, inviting him to admit defeat! In reality, the wizards had never gone anywhere. They’d been there all the time, exercising the art of disappearance. These Taoist masters didn’t even need the cover of darkness; they knew how to disappear from the sight of ordinary people even in broad daylight. This is an art attained only in the middle range of realization.
Wang Liping knew nothing of this; he only knew his astonishment and growing awe of the three ancients. They told him to go home and come back after school the next day; and to tell no one what he had witnessed.
When Liping got home that night, his parents were concerned. Where had he been until so late? What had he been doing? But Liping hemmed and hawed, so they didn’t press him. Those were hard times in China, and everyone in the family had to look out for each other, but sometimes one couldn’t keep an eye on everything. Liping was the second son, after all, and his parents had to worry more about his little brothers and sisters. Much of the time, Liping came and went on his own.
As for the three old men, the local people were sympathetic toward them on account of their advanced years, and because they had made their way there from the heartland of the nation. Their healing skills were welcomed by the people, although the old men revealed comparatively little in order to safeguard their identities as Taoist wizards. Over a period of time, the people came to honor and respect the three ancients, who asked no reward for their services. They used to let Wang Liping do chores for them, and he also got to watch them treat people’s illnesses. In between times, they would talk to their young protégé about things that would help orient him on the Way.
Needing a quiet place to train their new disciple, the three teachers found an old smithy, long abandoned, quite out of the way of ordinary traffic. The masters cleaned the place up, planted some trees out front, and started a vegetable garden in back. The people of the mountain villages, being simple, rustic folk, pure and straightforward in their ways, were touched by the good deeds of the venerable old curers, and used to send them gifts of kindling, rice, and other necessities.
With the passage of time, Wang Liping gradually got used to the old masters, who began to guide him in subtle ways to prepare him for the long course of training he was to undergo.
One cold autumn night, as the four sat around a lone lamp the Grand Master Zhang Hodao began to tell stories about ancient Taoists and principles of Taoism. He went into greatest detail about Changchun, the Real Man of Eternal Spring, who lived in the time of Genghis Khan and was the founder of the Dragon Gate sect.
Changchun entered the Taoist path at the age of nineteen and became a disciple of the great Master Wang Chongyang when he was twenty. After his teacher passed away, Changchun traveled to Mount Zhongnan, an ancient center of spiritual studies.
Arriving in the dead of winter, Changchun was snowed in for five days and nights, holed up in a little shrine. In danger of starving or freezing to death, Changchun entered into a deep trance.
In the midst of his profound abstraction, Changchun suddenly heard a voice. Looking up, he saw an old man standing in front of him, bearing a gift of food. Placing the offering before Changchun, the old man turned and walked away.
Following the ancient to the door of the shrine, Changchun looked out to see nothing but a vast expanse of virgin snow. There was not a single footprint. When the snows had receded and travel was again possible, Changchun continued his journey westward, until he came to a huge valley known as Fa River Valley. The riverbed was very wide, and the water alternately rose so high and fell so low that it was impossible to build a bridge or establish a ferry. As a result, travelers had to wade across the river. Seeing the dangers to which people were thus exposed, Changchun resolved to stay there and serve travelers by carrying them across the river on his shoulders.
Fixing up an ancient shrine by the waterside, for six years Changchun lived there by the river, spending the nights in meditation and the days carrying travelers over the water.
During this period of time, Changchun experienced what Taoists call the Great Death no less than seven times, and went through what they call Minor Death countless times. Dying and returning to life, he succeeded in transcending the ordinary world of people, events, and things.
The grand master concluded his talk with these words: “Our spiritual ancestor Changchun had a saying: ‘When not a single thought is produced, that is freedom; where there is nothing on the mind, that is immortal enlightenment.’ This is how intensely the spiritual immortals and celestial wizards cultivated and trained themselves!”
Then the old man turned to Wang Liping and asked, “Were you listening?” Startled out of his reverie, the boy replied that he had indeed been listening. The old man asked him what he had understood from the stories.
Liping replied with clear assurance, “Only with a sincere heart and a firm will is it possible to learn the Way and develop real potential.”
The three old men smiled. The eldest master asked the boy, “Do you want to study the Way?”
“Yes,” replied Liping in a most serious and determined tone of voice, “but I don’t know how. I don’t have