Long ago, in the state of Cheng, there lived a powerful shaman. This shaman had many spirit helpers and could read any man or woman’s destiny just by looking at their face. He could tell them about their past and future, gain and loss, fortune and misfortune. He could also tell anyone the exact time of their death – including the year, month, day and even hour.
Of course he was feared by many people, who usually passed him with their faces averted. After all, it is only the most brave or foolish who wish to know such dire news. When he would come into the village from his mountain home, with his long matted hair, clothed in rags and furs, with many amulets of bones, stones and animal parts all clanking about him, his eyes blazing with a fierce and animal-like fire, people would flee.
Lieh Tzu, the young student of the Taoist master Hu Tzu, and a very inquisitive sort, decided that he needed to meet such a powerful and feared man and so went up the mountain to visit him. He entered the shaman’s hut and, after allowing a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the smoke-filled room, sat himself down before the shaman.
The shaman looked back at the young man with a fierce, almost savage look. He shook one of his ox-hide rattles at him and asked what he wanted. Did he want his fortune told? did he want to know the year, month, day and hour of his death?
“No,” answered Lieh Tzu, a little shaken but trying hard not to show it. “I am studying to become an Immortal with Master Hu Tzu, I do not fear death.”
“Ha!” exclaimed the shaman with a mighty shout and leapt up from his tiger-skin bed and began dancing all about Lieh Tzu. He danced and sang and threw various coloured powders into the fire, raising great multicoloured clouds of smoke all about them.
At first Lieh Tzu sat there, unmoved. After all, he was the student of the great Hu Tzu. He was not afraid of a mere shaman. But as the day went by and the shadows lengthened in that little room, and the shaman danced on and began to speak with the voices of various birds and other wild animals, Lieh Tzu began to feel a bit uncomfortable. After a while this feeling of discomfort began to turn into outright fear when the shaman suddenly stopped his wild chanting and dancing and stuck his great hairy face into Lieh Tzu’s and growled at him with the precise sound of a mountain lion.
As it turns out, mountain lions were the one thing that Lieh Tzu was afraid of, having had a bad scare as a child while tending sheep for his family. He leapt up and ran out of the shaman’s hut as fast as he could while the shaman laughed a ragged and hoarse laugh, just like a mountain lion if a mountain lion could make such sounds.
Lieh Tzu ran all the way back to his master Hu Tzu and told him that he had met a man even more powerful than he. “I used to think that your Tao was the most perfect,” he told his teacher, still shaking with fear, “but now I have met someone who is in touch with the very elements!”
Hu Tzu looked at his young and shaken student and merely said, “I have shown you my outer appearance but not my essence. Do you really think that you have understood the Way? Can you get fertile eggs without a cock? You have only delved into Tao in a superficial way, that is why you are so transparent. Bring this shaman to me in the morning and we will see who he truly is.”
So the next day Lieh Tzu managed to convince the reluctant shaman to come down from his mountain abode and visit with his teacher. When they arrived, Hu Tzu made Lieh Tzu wait outside while he spoke with the shaman. In a very short while, the shaman strode from Hu Tzu’s house saying over his shoulder, “Your teacher is a dead man. He will be gone within the week. I saw a strange thing when I looked into his face. I saw a vision of wet ashes.”
Tearfully Lieh Tzu went in to see Hu Tzu, who was sitting calmly, waiting for him. “I am so sorry Master,” exclaimed Lieh Tzu, “the shaman told me that you are dying. I am sorry I ever brought him here.” He threw himself at Hu Tzu’s feet and began wailing and tearing at his robe.
Hu Tzu put out a hand and grabbed Lieh Tzu’s shoulder in a grip like an iron band. “Stop your weeping and wailing,” he ordered. “I am not dying. That shaman is a fool. He may be able to scare ordinary folk but not me. To test him I merely showed myself to him as the still and silent earth, immovable like a mountain. With his pitiful ability to see into people, he could see that I had dammed up the springs of my vital chi and that caused him to think that I am dying. Bring him again tomorrow and we shall see.”
So the next day Lieh Tzu trudged back up the mountain and brought the shaman back down. Again, he went into Hu Tzu’s house, his many necklaces clanking, leaving a smell of wood smoke and old hides behind him.
Presently he came out again, a wide grin displaying yellowed teeth. “It is very fortunate for you that you have brought me here to see your master. I can tell that he is getting better already. I could see that his vital chi, which was dammed up yesterday, is already beginning to flow again. You may send me three hens for my trouble.” And again he strode off.
Lieh Tzu went in to see his master, who was sitting the same way as the day before. Before Lieh Tzu could ask him what had happened Hu Tzu said, “Today I showed myself to him as the Heavenly void, the Wuji, without name or substance, the beginningless beginning. I showed him my yuan chi, my primordial energy, welling up from my heels. Doubtless that is what he saw as a good sign. Bring him before me again.”
So the next day the shaman came again. This time when he left Hu Tzu’s house he was shaking his head. “I do not understand,” he said. “This master of yours is never the same for one day. The day before yesterday I saw death in his face, yesterday it seemed to me that I saw life. Today I am confused. I cannot read his face at all. Let his spirit settle down first, then I will be able to read him clearly.” And again, he strode off, still shaking his head.
Lieh Tzu went in to see his teacher, who greeted him with a smile. “I just showed him the Tai Chi, the Great Ultimate,” he said, “where all primal qualities are in perfect balance and harmony. Of course all the ignorant oaf saw was the perfect balance of my internal chi.
“When the ocean of internal chi is disturbed, it makes waves swirl to a great depth. There are nine levels to this depth. I have nine centres of chi in my body, three of which I showed to him, which confused his poor stupid head. Bring him back to me one more time.”
This time Lieh Tzu stood very near the door so that he could hear what was going on inside. But no sooner had the shaman gone into Hu Tzu’s house than he came running back out again, necklaces clanking, with a wild and terrified look on this face, knocking Lieh Tzu to the ground.
“Wait,” cried Lieh Tzu, “what happened?”
But the shaman would not stop. Soon after that he disappeared from his mountain home and was never seen in those parts again.
When Lieh Tzu asked his master what had happened Hu Tzu told him, “I merely showed him my true self, before I came into being – like grass bending before the wind on the steppes and as water flowing in waves across a vast sea. I opened myself completely to him and he was frightened by what he saw and ran away.”
Lieh Tzu saw then that his master was indeed a true man of Tao. Tearfully, he bade Hu Tzu goodbye and went back to his home, where he lived for three years without going out into the world. He let his wife rest and did all the cooking and he fed the pigs as if they were people and old friends. He took no part in the goings on of the world but kept himself whole and plain, like a block of wood or clump of earth.
And slowly, little by little, he began to understand what his teacher had been trying to tell him all those years. He gave up trying to learn everything. He gave up trying to be good. He gave up trying to become enlightened. He began to experience himself as one with the great unending Tao and he remained close to the Tao until the end of his days.
LIEH TZU
If one is true to one’s self
and follows its teaching,
who need be without a teacher?
CHUANG TZU
