Ancestor Lu Meets Master Huanglong Huinan

[Simple_Jack]

These are a collection of anecdotes, as explained by Master Nan Huaijin, on the story of Immortal Lu Dongbin, who was enlightened at the words of Ch'an master Huanglong Huinan [1002-1069 http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105111250] of the Linji school, at his monastery on Lushan in Jiangxi province, in the early period of the Song Dynasty. All names in the cited books are in Wade-Giles.

 

To Realize Enlightenment: Practice of the Cultivation Path by Nan Huaijin, trans. by J.C. Cleary, pg. 155-160:

 

"...What people who have awakened to the Path by illuminating mind and seeing true nature attain is fundamental wisdom. But they do not necessarily have differentiating wisdom. They can see inherent nature. But to be able to function from inherent nature, and to be able to perfect all merits and achievements -- that is really not easy.

In cultivation, if your aspiration is not as high as the dharmakaya, but you still want to attain health and long life, you must see to it that you go and study Lu Ch'un-yang's Hundred Word Inscription. Lu Ch'un-yang was enlightened through Zen. Later he obeyed the command of Zen master Huang-lung Nan, and served forever lifetime after lifetime as an outside protector of Buddhism. Lu Ch'un-yang failed to win success and fame through the official examinations. Later on he dreamed of ripe grain, and after he woke up, he left home. He cultivated Taoism, and was very famous in the period of the end of the T'ang and the Five Dynasties. He refined his energy-work to a very high level, and he could fly through the air. He wrote a famous two-line verse:

 

There's a jewel in the field of elixir:

stop seeking the Path

Face objects without mind:

don't ask about Zen.

 

If people in general could reach this level, they wouldn't be talking about health and long life; they would be able to banish sickness and extend their lives forever without getting old. Of course the methods of cultivating practice contained in these two lines are very significant.

One time, Lu Ch'un-yang, flew off holding a jeweled sword in his mouth, and crossed over Mount Lu in Kiangsi. This was the site of a big temple, the Zen School's Huang-lung Temple. As Lu Ch'un-yang was flying past high above, he saw the energy pattern on this mountain was unusual, and he knew there must be a man of lofty attainment there.

Lu Ch'un-yang descended and saw that it was Huang-lung Temple. There was a man there lecturing on the sutras: this was Zen master Huang-lung Nan, a great worthy of the Lin-chi School of Zen. Lu Ch'un-yang stood off to one side looking on for quite a while. He felt it was very strange: this Zen master did not emit light or move the earth or show any other ability like that. He was an ordinary monk. How was it that so many people were listening to him then? The more he looked, the stranger it seemed, so he just stood there. Zen master Huang-lung Nan stopped expounding the Dharma and said: "In the audience there is someone spying on the Dharma." He knew there was someone there listening surreptitiously.

Lu Ch'un-yang did not put up with this kind of talk, so he stood up. Huang-lung Nan asked him, who he was, and he told him his name. Huang-lung Nan said: "Oh! After all, it's you. I thought you were something special, but actually you are only a ghost guarding a corpse." (You can make this body live forever without getting old: you are holding onto it tightly.) As soon as Lu Ch'un-yang heard this, he got angry and said: " A real man can possess the medicine of ageless eternal life. What is this ordinary man's fleshly body of yours worth?" Huang-lung Nan replied: "Even if you can survive for eighty thousand eons, in the end you fall into empty annihilation."

Lu Ch'un-yang was annoyed at this response, so he lifted his sleeves, and sent forth his flying sword, deliberately trying to frighten the old monk. He didn't know that the flying sword would stop in front of the old monk's face, then turn around, and fly back to threaten him. Lu was surprised and thought: "This monk is an ordinary man, isn't he? If he has no meditative attainments, why is it that my sword does not obey my command?"

Later people studied this as a meditation case. Was it the spirits who protect the Dharma who deflected the flying sword? Or was it the power of Huang-lung Nan's transcendental wisdom? Or was there some other basic cause? Ultimately, what was the reason for this?

Huang-lung Nan laughed and said to Lu: "You don't have to resort to these methods. A minute ago you said you have real ability, I ask you, what truth have you seen?" Lu Ch'un-yang said: "A single grain of millet contains the world. The mountains and rivers are cooking in a pan." This is a statement about the Path: he is talking about the truth he saw when he saw the Path. Huang-lung Nan said: "I'll not ask you how to cook the mountains and rivers. But how can a single grain of millet contain the world?" The two went on this way, bandying back and forth. Through the conversation, Lu Ch'un-yang finally became enlightened, and made a verse:

 

I throw away the gourd and container and drop the

shattered zither

Right now I don't long for the gold in the mercury

After once I saw Huang-lung

I finally realized that I had always been

using mind wrongly.

 

At that time, for the Taoists to bring forth an enlightened person like Lu Ch'un-yang was like the Zen School producing a Sixth Patriarch. To find out how to cultivate health and long life, you should consult Lu Ch'un-yang's "The Hundred Word Inscription." This is one of the best products of the "Three Teachings," Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. It is also very good for studying Buddhism.

 

The Hundred Word Inscription

 

To nurture the vital energy, the ch'i,

keep watch without words

To subdue the mind, act without acting

Recognize the patriarch in movement and stillness

There is nothing to be concerned about:

who else are you seeking?

What's true and eternal must respond to beings

To respond to beings you must not be deluded

If you are not deluded, real nature remains by itself

When real nature remains, vital energy returns by itself

When vital energy returns, the elixir spontaneously forms

In the vessel the fire [of prajna] and

the water [of jnana] are matched

Yin and yang are born in succession

Universal transformation rolls like thunder

Sweet dew sprinkles down on Sumeru

Drink for yourself the wine of immortality

As you roam free, no one will know,

Sit and listen to the tune of the

zither without strings

Clearly comprehend the working of creation

It's all in these twenty lines

A true ladder straight to heaven.

 

Nurturing the ch'i, the vital energy, the breath of life, is the true meditation work of cultivating the breath as it moves in and out that is part of the teaching of the ten forms of mindfulness.

To say "subduing the mind" comes from The Diamond Sutra, which speaks of "subduing one's mind." As for "act without acting," if you deliberately subdue the mind you are attached to forms. But inherent nature is fundamentally empty, so it acts without acting. This tells us about seeing truth and meditation work.

The two lines about movement and stillness put in the Bodhisattva Kuan-shih-yin's Dharma Gate of perfect penetration are: "The two forms, movement and stillness, are completely unborn." But if your not sunk in oblivion, or scattered in confusion, you yourself can be the master of movement and stillness and empty them out. Don't seek any other method.

To deal with people and handle situations, you must be able not to go against your fundamental nature. Here in the fifth and sixth lines, the verse is talking about meditation work.

You do not have to do any work: mind and energy are joined together, and mind and things have one single source. When thoughts have truly been emptied out, "vital energy returns by itself." You can spontaneously stop the energy channels, and reach the second and third dhyanas.

Here in the verse, when he talks of elixir, it is not that there really is such a thing in the belly. The ancient Taoists described the elixir as like the moon, a round point within, to represent the point of perfect, inherently awake, spiritually illuminated, enlightened nature. The vessel represents the body, the transformative functioning of your own energy channels. You only have to manage to stop your energy channels, and they will spontaneously undergo a transformation.

After this spontaneous samadhi has continued for a long time, "Universal transformation rolls like thunder." With a peel of thunder, all the energy channels in your body open. At this point, it is exactly as Chuang-tzu said: "You move back and forth with the spirit of heaven and earth." You are one body with the universe. A this point, the central channel is really open.

"White clouds cover the peak in the morning." This at last is the true initiation, the true anointing, of the esoteric school. You are anointed with the light of the wisdom of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. In the verse Sumeru means your head. The great bliss chakra on the top of your head suddenly opens. At this point, you will certainly have eternal life without growing old. This is the supreme worldly dharma.

"The tune of the zither without strings" stands for the Bodhisattva Kuan-shih-yin "entering samadhi by means of hearing, contemplating, and cultivating practice."

Each of the twenty lines of the verse has five characteristics, making a hundred characters altogether, so the verse is called "The Hundred Word Inscription." These twenty lines recount the whole process of going from an ordinary person, through cultivating eternal ageless life, to the point of transcending the realm of ordinary people and entering the realm of the sages. Every line relates both to seeing truth and to meditation work.

For example, at the beginning, everyone wants to attain samadhi. Why can't you do it? It is because you cannot accomplish what is indicated in the first line: "To nurture the vital energy, the ch'i, keep watch without words." Who can do the work of nurturing the vital energy to the point that there are no false thoughts at all? Thoughts are very numerous, and though you try to keep watch over them, you cannot hold them still. You are even less able to accomplish what is indicated in the second line: "To subdue the mind, act without acting." If you cannot do this, you can't even talk of what follows.

When you sit meditating in stillness, you have a bit of a shadow of attainment, but as soon as you stop meditating, you have nothing at all. Fundamentally you have not been able to recognize the patriarch. It is very important to recognize the patriarch in both motion and stillness. Who can have stillness in his mind all day long without concerns?

The spiritually illuminated enlightened nature is always present. The energy spontaneously returns: it does not call on us to work at it. The elixir forms forms by itself. It is something natural, something that is inherently present in our lives.

You should not use a sectarian point of view when you look at this Hundred Word Inscription. Lu Ch'un-yang in addition to being a Taoist adept, was also a great Dharma protector of the Zen School, one of the disciples of Huang-lung Nan who truly attained to his Dharma. If you want health and long life, and proceed according to what he said, that will certainly be enough."

 

Here's some other translations and commentaries on the "The Hundred Character Tablet" - http://www.scribd.com/doc/90588603/The-Hundred-Character-Tablet-Compare

Edited January 19, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Simple_Jack]

From Nan Huaijin's Diamond Sutra Explained trans. by Hue En/Pia Giammasi, pgs. 232-233:

 

"...There is a story of the Taoist Lu Ch'un-yang which illustrates this whole thing very well. Lu Ch'un-yang eventually became enlightened through Ch'an Master Huang-lung, became his disciple and vowed to be a protector of the Buddha Dharma. There are two famous lines of his which say, "Sentient beings are easy to save; but humans are most difficult." "Sentient beings" here means all beings other than humans, "I'd rather then the sentient beings and not the humans save."

One day Lu Ch'un-yang went to Nanjing and disguised himself as a pitifully poor old man. He went up to a street vendor selling sticky rice snacks and she gave him one. He ate it and went away without giving any money. The vendor didn't say anything. This old man would often come to the vendor who would always give him food without any questions asked.

After some years, he finally spoke to her one day. He asked, "Old woman why is it you've never asked me for money?" "Because you are a poor old man with no money!" Lu-Ch'un-yang said, "There are no other good people on this earth. You're the only one. Would you like to become an Immortal?" The old woman replied that she was quite comfortable just selling her snacks, "Would you like to become rich?" Lu asked, "I have a method I can teach you and in three years you would be able to turn things into gold with the touch of your finger." The old woman retorted, "How is it that you can turn things into gold but you don't even have enough money to buy my snacks? I don't believe you." He touched her wok, which immediately turned into gold, saying, "I don't pay money but I do have this. Do you want to learn?" She was taken aback but still declined. "What do you want then?" Lu asked, thinking to himself that finally he had found a truly virtuous person. She thought a moment and said "Learning is too much trouble, just give me that finger of yours." Lu Ch'un-yang just shook his head saying "Sentient beings are easy to save, but humans are most difficult. I'd rather then the sentient beings and not the humans save."

Edited January 19, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Ish]

Thanks for posting.

 

I've read that first story before, sounds a bit like Buddhist propaganda to me haha

[Simple_Jack]

From Nan Huaijin's Working Toward Enlightenment: The Cultivation of Practice, trans. by J.C. Cleary, pgs. 179-180:

 

"...At first let's not discuss awakening to the Path and becoming enlightened -- we will just discuss cultivating and nurturing meditation work. You must investigate old Mencius's principle of nurturing the ch'i. There is also the statement in The Hundred Word Inscription by the Taoist Immortal Lu Ch'un-yang:

 

Nurture the ch'i, forget words, and hold to it

Subdue the mind and act without acting

 

This is also very important. Lu Ch'un-yang was a Taoist, and he also studied Zen. In his The Hundred Word Inscription, he included the phenomenal aspects of his cultivation and realization, especially the process by which he succeeded in the refinement of his breathing. It is very much worth studying, but you will have to rely on an enlightened teacher to understand it properly. Without someone's guidance, you may go into many wrong byways, but if you follow the pointers of an experienced person, half the work will be done."

[Simple_Jack]

From Nan Huaijin's Diamond Sutra Explained, trans. by Hue En/Pia Giammasi, pg.306:

 

"...All of us have been studying and talking about the Diamond Sutra, the merit of this must be pretty good right? Of course it is! We have the luxury of sitting in this air-conditioned room for two hours with no responsibilities. Shouldn't this be considered fortunate? What is fortune other than peace and security? Lu Ch'un-yang wrote a poem describing fortune:

 

A clear day, nothing to do, free as celestial existence;

Spirit calm, body in balance, peaceful and secure.

Deep inside there is a jewel, at rest, no search for Tao;

The right place is no-mind, don't ask about Ch'an!

 

"A clear day, nothing to do, free as celestial existence." When a person has such a day it is like the alambana of a celestial being. "Spirit calm, body in balance, peaceful and secure." If also during this day, one has no physical or mental discomfort, this is fortune. "Deep inside there is a jewel, at rest, no search for Tao." This is referring to the field of blessedness in our hearts and minds. If one is calm and clear, this is cultivation. There is no need to search for something else. "The right place is no-mind, don't ask about Ch'an!" The right place is no-mind; this is Ch'an! Why do you need to ask about Ch'an?

Peace and security are fortune. Spirit calm, body in balance, peaceful and secure is fortune. Don't think that fortune only comes from espousing the sutras or reciting them in temples. This is a notion of dharma..."

Edited January 25, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I was interested to read the original text so I made a translation which I will post below for anyone that might be interested. (If you wish to discuss the translation, please post here. Thank you.).

 

 

 

 

吕洞宾 百字碑
Lu Dong Bin, 100 Character Tablet

1養氣忘言守
Nourish Chi, forget words. Guard (this state. [nourishing and guarding correspond in meaning]).

 

降心為不為

Lower the heart-mind’s activity to no activity.

11動靜知宗祖
In the stirrings of clarity and calm, know the ancestral originator

 

無事更尋誰

Without busying oneself further by searching for anyone.

 

21真常須應物
The true unchanging principle has to respond and adapt to things.

 

應物要不迷

In adapting to things, it is necessary not to become confused. [*1]

31不迷性自住
Not being confused, Xing (life-heart) naturally resides.

 

性住氣自回

Xing (life-heart) remaining, chi naturally returns.

41氣回丹自結
Chi returning, medicine is naturally formed

 

夢中配坎離

In a dream, the marriage of kan (water) and li (fire)

51陰陽生返復
Yin and yang arise and return, repeatedly

 

普化一聲雷

All things transform in one clap of thunder

61白雲朝頂上,

White clouds of the morning above the summit [*2]

 

甘露灑須彌。
Sweet dew trickles down mount Sumeru

71自飲長生酒
Naturally drinking the long-life elixir

 

逍遙誰得知

Roaming freely. Who knows of this?

81坐聽無弦曲
Sitting and listening to the stringless tune

 

明通造化機

Clarity passes through unhindered to create the mechanism of change

91都來二十句,

These twenty verses

 

端的上天梯

Begin the ascent on the ladder to Heaven

 

 

 

 

*1. alt. translation: The true principle always responds to things. This responsiveness must not be lost.

*2. 頂 ding, also means “crown of the head.”

 

[idiot_stimpy]

thank you

[Simple_Jack]

From Nan Huaijin's "The Story of Chinese Zen" trans. by Thomas Cleary, pgs.153-154:

....Meditation concentration and psychic powers are all creations of mind, realms of experience that can be reached through mind, will, and consciousness. If you gain some proficiency in these areas yet still cannot clearly understand what enables you to attain meditation concentration, what enables you to produce the functions of psychic powers, this mind that is the heart of the basic potency, then what is the condition of this state of yours in the ultimate sense? Where does it ultimately come from? Where is it ultimately going to? What sort of thing, in the ultimate sense, is its basic substance? If one was accomplished in meditation concentration and psychic powers yet did not know this mind, would one not still be as before, an ignorant human being who does not know the ultimate nature of the universe and human life? That is why the Lankavatara sutra says that these states and experiences are nothing but disguises of consciousness itself. The sutra also clearly says, "Even if you attain the nine stages of concentration in the present, these are still things that are reflections of discrimination of phenomena as objects," thus summing up the case.

The Sung Dynasty real human Chang Tzu-yang, who studied Zen through the Taoist school of spiritual immortalism, also said, "Even if you have a halo crowning your head, it is still a mirage; even if clouds arise under your feet, you are still not immortal!"

[goldisheavy]

Hmm... this is a very good story, but unfortunately it will be impenetrable for a lot of people.

 

I'll write a brief commentary to try to help.

 

 

The Hundred Word Inscription

 

To nurture the vital energy, the ch'i,

keep watch without words

 

This is not to be taken literally. What he means is that one should observe the suggestive appearances without falling for any of the suggestions seemingly implied by the contents of one's immediate experience. So when one observes an appearance that suggests a table, one doesn't cosntrue a table. When one observes an appearance that suggests a human being, one doesn't construe a human being. And so on, without limit. This even applies to phenomena ordinarily considered "internal." So for example, when one observes an appearance suggestive of thought, one doesn't construe thought.

 

To subdue the mind, act without acting

 

To act without acting means to act without pretense, without subterfuge, without scheming, and without planning. When one acts according to the uncontrived state of one's deepest immediate wishes, without fear, accepting any possible outcome that may result from this mode of conduct, one gradually becomes a God. To honor oneself in this way is to honor all the ancestral patriarchs and matriarchs.

 

Recognize the patriarch in movement and stillness

 

Whatever you end up doing, be it vigorous activity, or relaxation, or anything in between, what matters is whether or not you recognize what's actually happening in your own mind. Don't fall for any narratives. Make up your own narrative if you want.

 

There is nothing to be concerned about:

who else are you seeking?

 

If you imagine enlightenment or enlightened beings to have some specific and concrete characteristics and then if you try to match yourself up to that imagined ideal, you'll just foolishly and uselessly work yourself over.

 

What's true and eternal must respond to beings

 

Don't seek anything outside yourself. Recognize what is true and what is eternal in the immediacy of your direct experience.

 

To respond to beings you must not be deluded

 

If you rely on a conventional understaning of what a being is and isn't, then you'll not be able to respond to beings properly, because you'll keep responding to a fixed imaginary ideal in your own mind instead of to the situation at hand. The situation at hand is wide open to interpretation. Phenomena are ambiguous. To cling to any interpretation or definition as the final one is to stifle the breath and to block one's chi. And yet to imagine that definitions are to be avoided entirely is to turn medicine into poison. Instead work with the definitions in a flexible and creative way. Hold the ball too tight and you freeze. Hold too loosely and you drop the ball. If you cling to some imaginary medium strength grip as some ideal grip, you become stiff. So avoid the extremes, but avoid the middle as well. In a word, don't strive. Be playful.

 

If you are not deluded, real nature remains by itself

 

Understanding the phenomenal appearances in one's own mind just as they are is the correct meditation.

 

When real nature remains, vital energy returns by itself

 

Simply by thoroughly understanding what's happening, your volition will come to rest in its own secret source.

 

When vital energy returns, the elixir spontaneously forms

 

Once your volition thoroughly learns to remain free of ignorant conventional contrivances, you'll realize immortality spontaneously.

 

In the vessel the fire [of prajna] and

the water [of jnana] are matched

 

Wisdom and meditative absorption are interdependent qualities. Without wisdom meditative absorption amounts to self-delusion.

 

Yin and yang are born in succession

Universal transformation rolls like thunder

Sweet dew sprinkles down on Sumeru

 

Ordinary experience becomes extraordinary. Extraordinary returns back to ordinary. Ride the highs and the lows. Your experience is not going to be flat or free of upheavals just because you follow these instructions. Embrace all qualities of your experience, from the highest highs to the lowest lows as the sweet dew of immortality.

 

Drink for yourself the wine of immortality

 

Freedom is subjective. Trying to get someone to validate your state is bondage. Just as you don't need anyone to confirm that being caught in a net is constricting once you are caught in a net, once you begin experiencing genuine freedom, it won't occur to you to get someone's stamp of approval.

 

As you roam free, no one will know,

 

No one can accurately judge your state. Only you know how you feel. Being insecure, ignorant, wise, secure, released... samsara, nirvana, bondage and unbinding -- all these are subjective experiences. Do not seek objective freedom. Embrace your subjectivity 100%.

 

Sit and listen to the tune of the

zither without strings

Clearly comprehend the working of creation

It's all in these twenty lines

A true ladder straight to heaven.

 

This tune appears in your mind without any obvious preconditions. Listen and enjoy.

 

Here ends a commentary by someone who knows oneself as a glorious lord. May all beings benefit as quickly as possible. I prostrate myself to all the realized ones of the three times.

[Simple_Jack]

A version of this story was previously posted by 林愛偉:

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/5869-master-lu-dong-bin/

 

The Proper Story of Lu Dong Bin spoken by Chan Master Xu Yun Lao He Shang (Old Monk Xu Yun)

Story can be found on :
http://zbohy.zatma.o...book/xy_11.html

The Dao Immortal

Forty-three generations of Chan masters have passed since the Sixth Patriarch held high the Dharma Lamp. Forty-three generations of seekers have found the Way, guided by his Light.

No matter how confirmed a person is in another Path, he can be guided by Chan. When sunlight comes through the window, it does not illuminate some sections of the room while leaving other parts in darkness. The entire room is lit by the Sun's Truth. So, any person, no matter which Path he has chosen, can receive the benefits of Chan's Lamp.

Take the famous case of the Dao Immortal Lu Dong Bin.

Lu Dong Bin was the youngest and most unrestrained of all the Dao Immortals. Actually, you could say that he was pretty wild. At least that's how he started out.

In his mortal days, he was called Chun Yang... a native of Jing Chuan who lived at the end of the T'ang Dynasty. That was more than a thousand years ago, but those days weren't so different from ours. If a young man wanted to get ahead, he needed an education. In our time, he'd get a college degree. But in those days, he had to pass the dreaded Scholar's Examination. If a fellow couldn't pass this exam, he had to give some serious thought to farming.

Well, Chun Yang tried three times to pass the Scholar's Examination, and three times he failed. He was frustrated and depressed. He knew he had let his family down, and that he hadn't done much for himself, either. It was his own professional future that he had doomed.

So Chun Yang did what a lot of desperate young people do, he started hanging out in wine-shops trying to drink himself to death.

The path that alcohol takes went in the same direction for Chun Yang as it does for anyone else: it went straight down. As the old saying goes, first Shun Yung was drinking the wine, then the wine was drinking the wine, and then the wine was drinking Shun Yung. He was in pretty bad shape by the time the Dao Immortal, Zhong Li Quan, chanced to meet him in one of those saloons.

The Dao Immortal took an interest in the young man. "Instead of trying to shorten your life with wine," he said, "why don't you try to lengthen your life with Dao."

Instead of a short, miserable life, Zhong Li Quan offered Chun Yang a long, happy life. It sounded like a good deal. Chun Yang might not have had what it took to be a government bureaucrat, but he certainly had everything required to try spiritual alchemy.

Chun Yang had nothing else to do with his time so he had plenty of opportunity to practice. He was definitely motivated. I suppose that he had become aware of how far down he had gone, that he'd hit bottom, so to speak. When a person realizes that he doesn't have anything to lose by looking at life from another point of view, he's more open to new ideas.

So Chun Yang had the motivation and the opportunity. It only remained to acquire the means. And that was what Zhong Li Quan was offering to supply. He'd teach him the necessary techniques.

Chun Yang threw his heart and soul into the mastery of what is called the Small Cosmic Orbit, a powerful yoga practice that uses sexual energy to transmute the dross of human nature into the Gold of Immortality. He got so good at it he could make himself invisible or appear in two places at once.... That's pretty good.

One day he decided to fly over Chan Monastery Hai Hui which was situated on Lu Shan mountain. Saints and Immortals can do that, you know. They're like pilots without airplanes... or parachutes.

While he was flying around up there, he saw and heard the Buddhist monks chanting and working hard doing all the ordinary things that Buddhist monks do. So, to show off his powers and mock the monks' industry, he wrote a little poem on the wall of the monastery's bell tower:

With Jewel inside my Hara's treasure,
Every truth becomes my pleasure.
When day is done I can relax
My Mind's without a care to tax.
Your mindless Chan a purpose lacks.

Some such bad poetry like that. Then he flew away. Every day that the Abbot, Chan Master Huang Lung, looked up at the bell tower he had to read that awful poetry.

One day while the former Chun Yang - he was now known as the Immortal Lu Dong Bin - was flying around the vicinity of the monastery he saw a purple umbrella-shaped cloud rising over the monastery. This was a clear indication that something very spiritual was going on and so Lu Dong Bin thought he'd come down and take a look.

All the monks were going into the Dharma Hall so he just disguised himself as a monk and followed them in. But he couldn't fool old Abbot Huang Lung.

"I don't think I'll expound the Dharma, today," growled Huang Lung. "We seem to have a Dharma Thief in our midst."

Lu Dong Bin stepped forward and arrogantly bowed to the Master. "Would you be kind enough," he challenged sarcastically, "to enlighten me to the meaning of the expression, `A grain of wheat can contain the universe and mountains and rivers can fit into a small cooking pot.'" Lu Dong Bin didn't believe in the empty, egoless state. He accepted the false view that the ego somehow survives death.

Huang Lung laughed at him. "Look! A devil guards a corpse!"

"A corpse?" Lu Tun Pin retorted. "Hah! My gourd is filled with the Elixir of Immortality!"

"You can drag your corpse throughout eternity for all I care," said Huang Lung. "But for now, get it out of here!"

"Can't you answer my question?" taunted Lu Dong Bin.

"I thought you had all the answers you needed," Huang Lung scoffed. He remembered the poem.

Lu Dong Bin responded with fury. He hurled his dreaded sword, the "Devil Slayer", at Huang Lung; but the Master merely pointed his finger at the flying sword and it stopped in mid-flight and dropped harmlessly to the floor. The Immortal was awestruck! He had never imagined a Chan master could be so powerful. Contrite, he dropped to his knees in a show of respect. "Please, master," he said, "I truly do wish to understand."

Huang Lung softened towards him. "Let's forget the second part about the cooking pot," he said generously. "Instead, concentrate on the first part. The same mind that gives form to an arrangement of matter which it names `a grain of wheat' is the same mind that gives form to an arrangement of matter which it names `a universe'. Concepts are in the mind. `Mindless Chan,' as you previously put it, is actually the practice of emptying the mind of concepts, of judgments, of opinions, of ego." Then he added, remembering the poem probably, "Especially the concept of ego!"

Lu Dong Bin brooded about the answer until he suddenly understood it. As long as he discriminated between himself and others, between desirable and undesirable, between insignificant and important, he was enslaved to the conceptual world, he was merely an Arbiter of Illusions. Nobody in his right mind wants to be that! And certainly no Dao Immortal wants to spend his life, or all eternity, either, judging between lies, deciding which ones are more convincing than others.

Overjoyed, Lu Dong Bin flew up to the tower, erased his old poem and substituted another:

I thought I'd mastered my small mind,
But t'was the other way around.
I sought for gold in mercury
But illusion's all I found.
My sword came crashing to the floor
When Huang Lung pointed at the moon;
I saw the light, his truth broke through
And saved me none too soon.

Unfortunately, Enlightenment didn't make him a better poet.

The point, however, is that Lu Dong Bin, despite being a Dao Immortal, was able to benefit from Chan. He so appreciated the Three Jewels - Buddha, Dharma, Sangha - that he actually acquired the title of Guardian of the Dharma. Of course, it wasn't necessary for him to convert and call himself a Chan Man. The whole lesson of his Enlightenment was that names are meaningless, so he continued being a Dao Immortal. Only now, because he understood so much more, he immediately rose through the ranks of the Immortals; and though he was the youngest of them all, he became the most prominent. Under his inspired leadership, the Daoist Sect in the North really began to thrive. Lu Dong Bin was called the Fifth Dao Patriarch of the North.

Down South, another great Daoist, Zi Yang, also attained Enlightenment after reading Buddhist sutras. He became known as the Fifth Dao Patriarch of the South...

...but that's another story.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Simple_Jack