Although he gave no sign of it, Wang Liping was delighted. “No wonder they had me learn to sit quietly so long. There are so many things to study!”
Now the Wayfarer of Pure Emptiness, Gu Jiaoyi, continued where the old master had left off. “After you enter into quiet stillness sitting cross-legged, once random thoughts are eliminated, when stillness reaches its extreme, it produces movement. Then various sorts of hallucinations will begin to appear in your brain. When you close your eyes, you will see very lifelike images—birds flying in the sky, animals running and bounding on the ground, flowers, plants, and trees growing in the meadows, people involved in work and other activities. When these images have appeared, they are not actually hallucinations. The brain is beginning to represent real scenes you have seen in the past, so it is memory.
“When ordinary people remember past things, they do not see them so clearly and graphically. Only after accomplishment is achieved in the practice of entering stillness is it possible to ‘see’ clearly within the brain.
“Slowly, you should then see things that happened a long time ago, things you could never bring up simply by the power of memory or recollection. Now you will be able to see them clearly. You can keep going back all the way through your childhood, because your thinking has gone into reverse. This is called ‘retrospective gazing back to infancy.’ When thinking has gone back we say it is ‘retrospection,’ but in reality it is ‘gazing,’ a clear viewing of images.
“When these scenes appear, don’t be afraid. You must let them change as they may. It is most definitely necessary, however, to watch them closely and examine them in detail. You must absolutely avoid letting them go too easily, without clear perception.
“All right now,” the mentor concluded, “go sit in your hole in the ground, quiet down your mind, and see what scenes appear.”
Wang Liping went back to the hole in the ground again and shut himself in. Lighting three sticks of incense, he sat on a bunch of straw and went into a condition of stillness. After these few days of practice, Wang Liping understood the advantage of doing these exercises in the pit. The incense smoke no longer suffocated him, but instead it created an ethereal atmosphere.
After sitting quietly for a while, Wang Liping felt his whole body become nothing. Inside his brain was a complete blank. Then, all of a sudden, images began to appear. These images were not the same as those that had appeared before when he was practicing deliberate thinking in the dark room. Those earlier images had been deliberately mentally formulated; these images appeared spontaneously. They were very real, distinct, and clear.
Following his mentor’s instructions, Wang Liping felt no fear, but watched the images closely, observing how they appeared and how they changed, registering all this in memory. He had no idea how time and space could transform this way: space changed into a mirage, and time reversed its flow. As he sat there quietly, Wang Liping actually went through the experience of “retrospective gazing, returning to infancy.”
Liping had no idea how much time passed, but eventually the images faded and disappeared. Then he concluded his exercise and got out of the pit. Outside he saw that it was already late at night; then he realized this sitting had lasted four hours. During his retrospective gazing back into infancy, however, he had seen many places and events spanning several years’ time.
When Wang Liping told his teachers about his experiences in inward gazing during this session of quiet sitting, they saw that he was really intelligent, sincere, and quick to learn. Delighted, they urged him to keep on practicing his exercises, to achieve solid stability.
For his part, after this experience Wang Liping became even more attentive to his study of Taoism. One day when he went into the pit to sit, not long after entering into stillness, both eyes gazing inward, unexpectedly he found that he was able to see everything in his own body, from the outside to the inside. His youthful heart was pure, and he felt no fear, only a sense of wonder. Without getting upset or excited, he continued to gaze, observing every detail. When Wang Liping finished this exercise session, he reported his inner vision to the three masters. Exchanging meaningful glances, the old wizards smiled without saying anything. Realizing that they must have something to tell him about this experience, however, Liping asked the mentors for a pointer.
The Wayfarer of Pure Emptiness laughed and said, “You have again progressed further in quiet sitting. Now you have already entered into the second step of the method of developing mental capacities, which is called ‘clear distinction of the real and the unreal.’ When you gaze inwardly at your own body after entering stillness, even though your eyes are closed and you are in utter darkness, you can see the internal conditions of your own body with perfect clarity. When this happens, you should never be startled or frightened, and you should not engage in any activity. You must observe and make distinctions with accurate precision. See exactly how many bones there are in your head, what shape they are, and how they are joined together. What are the shapes of your internal organs? What colors are they? Are there any spots? When you can see these things plainly and register them clearly, then this becomes useful. This exercise is basic when it comes to diagnosing and curing disease. People may look well from the outside, but when you can see the internal condition of their bodies you know whether or not they are sick, and where the ailment is if they are. So this exercise method is called ‘clear distinction of the real and the unreal.’ Now that you have entered this domain, you should continue to practice, observing the structure of your body, remembering every detail.”
After a moment of silent reflection, the Wayfarer of the Infinite took up the thread. “After these two steps are completed,” he began, “the foundation of your inner work is secure, and you need more understanding of the principles of inner work cultivated by ancient health practitioners.
“Inner work cultivates both essence and life. Essence exercises cultivate the spirit, soul, will, awareness, tranquility, and stability. Life exercises cultivate the energy, blood, vitality, sinews, bones, and skin. The methods of cultivation include both stillness and motion. They are orderly and measured, yet adaptable to accord with natural conditions.
“The health practices of the Dragon Gate sect are based on ancient longevity teachings. They are modeled on the principles of yin and yang and are adjusted to calendrical logic. Yin and yang are constants of the sky and the earth; calendrical logic is the organization of hygiene.
“The inner work of the Spiritual Jewel teaching includes aspects associated with heaven, earth, and humankind, used as a means of mating external yin and yang, the five elements, and the eight trigrams with internal yin and yang, the five elements, and the eight trigrams, in order to cultivate them. This work is the basis for establishing essence and life and cultivating essence and life.
Heaven, earth, and humankind are a universe; the individual human being is also a universe, a microcosm. Changes in the macrocosm, the universe at large, all affect the microcosm, the little universe of the individual, and changes in the microcosm all correspond to changes in the macrocosm.
“Refining practices cultivated on the model of the moon circling the earth result in the microcycle, penetrating the three passes, breaking through the gate of heaven, opening the celestial eye, and descending through the three fields. When the aperture of the celestial eye opens, then inner vision is possible.
“The aperture of the celestial eye consists of three points on one line, from outside to inside, combining to form the ‘higher elixir.’ The ‘aperture’ is between the eyebrows, the ‘eye,’ which is popularly referred to as ‘nirvana,’ is inside that, and the ‘heaven,’ also called the ‘celestial mirror,’ is behind that. The aperture is naturally always open, but the eye has to be cultivated; the celestial is primordial. The aperture is open,