Talking about Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, "Laoshan Taoist" may be the most well-known story among them. Reading it once will make you laugh. In the story, Wang Sheng rushed to Mount Laoshan to cultivate immortality, but ended up chopping firewood every day. After cutting for a month, I couldn't stand it anymore and I was about to leave. But that night, when the Taoist priest and two fellow Taoists were drinking, he performed magic tricks for the disciples, such as cutting paper into the moon and drinking wine from the moon palace. He was so excited that he chopped firewood for an extra month. This time I really couldn't stand it anymore, but I couldn't bear to go home like this, so I pestered the Taoist priest in vain and learned a trick " wall penetration technique ". As soon as he got home, he wanted to perform for his wife, but ended up knocking himself out against the wall. The story ends here. In the end, Wang Sheng concluded: "The old Taoist priest is unscrupulous."
Although this story is ridiculous, the general explanation for how Wang Sheng's magic failed is that he didn't learn anything else but learned to walk through walls. He obviously had bad intentions and relied on magic to do bad things, so it didn't work. Xiuxian asked, how can you think of doing bad things? Of course, this is a way of saying it, but if it is not to enjoy happiness, then what is it for? Chopping wood? What's interesting is that in ancient supernatural novels , when it comes to going up the mountain to practice Taoism, most of them just chop wood and carry water. There are very few serious stories about how to cultivate immortality. Among them, the most famous one for chopping firewood is Jiang Ziya in "The Romance of the Gods". When it comes to the "unscrupulous" things they encountered, there is no comparison between Wang Sheng and Jiang Taigong.
Jiang Ziya went to Kunlun Mountain at the age of thirty-two. For forty years, according to his own words, he only did some "carrying water, watering pine trees, planting peaches, lighting fires, and fanning stoves." "Alchemy", his friends laughed at him and said, "This is a servant's job, so why bother?" (This is a servant's job, you have the nerve to say it?) It's just a servant. The problem is that Jiang Ziya worked for forty years. At the age of seventy-two, his master called him and said that he was "born with a poor life and it is difficult to achieve immortality"! This is a bit ridiculous, why didn't you say it earlier? I have been doing this for forty years, and now you are telling me that it is impossible to achieve immortality? His master may have wanted to compensate him by letting him go down the mountain to enjoy the blessings of the world. An ordinary person would naturally be very happy with this. But Jiang Ziya was not the same. He begged and expressed that he would rather practice asceticism in the mountains than be rich in this mortal world. What happened next was becoming a god.
One is Wang Sheng, who has only been chopping firewood for two months, and he can't help but want to go home; the other is Jiang Ziya, who has been delayed for forty years and still refuses to leave on the mountain. What's the point?
Xiuxian asked, what is the purpose of immortality? Most of us are actually the same as that Wang Sheng. Your purpose of cultivating immortality is nothing more than to better enjoy the wealth and honor of the mortal world. It's like the ancient emperors all wanted to live forever, but they didn't want to live in seclusion in the mountains, but they wanted to be immortal and sit on the throne forever. Starting from Qin Shihuang , this unrealistic pursuit has never stopped. The so-called "with a hundred thousand gold in the waist, riding a crane down to Yangzhou ". This is why it is impossible for mortals to cultivate the path to immortality.
Even cultivating immortality is not for immortality, but for seeking an otherworldly spiritual experience. When a person is obsessed with all kinds of pleasures in the mortal world, this person is already too "material". In other words, the original intention of cultivating immortality is to give up worldly material happiness in order to obtain a different kind of spiritual satisfaction. In a word, it's all false. Just like in "Laoshan Taoist", the Taoist priest and his two Taoist friends "drink and have fun": without candles, cut a piece of paper and stick it on the wall as the moon; without music, use a chopstick to turn into Chang'e to sing and dance; as for wine, a small pot of wine is given to seven or eight disciples, but they can't finish it. Can it be real wine?
At the end, the lights in the room suddenly dimmed, and a disciple brought candles in. Only the Taoist priest was seen in the whole room, sitting in the darkness. The wonderful thing is here. When the Taoist priest saw his disciples, he asked them if they had had enough wine. The disciple's answer is enough. The Taoist priest continued: "It's better to go to bed early and don't miss Qiao Su."(Go to bed early after drinking enough, and don't delay cutting firewood tomorrow.) It can be said that the essence of the whole story, what kind of realm is it to cultivate immortality, is all in these eight words.
It is better to go to bed early, and don't miss Qiao Su. Please encourage me.
Laoshan Taoist
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-