The Land of the Thunder God

GuZhe chapter 1

DiChuHuZhen

帝出乎震

The Supreme Being emerges from the East

or

All beings came from Thunder

       — Yijng ShuoGua 易經說卦

Video: The thunderstorm that inspired my meditation

During the sixth full moon night of JiaChen甲辰, the Wood Dragon Year, thunder and lighting are taking over the duty usually reserved for the bright moon. Yes, it is LeiZhai 雷齋, the full moon during the Thunder God’s birthday season, ZiShi 子時 (the Rat Hour, from 11pm to 1am), which is one of the best times of the year to harness the power of the Thunder God for healing, spiritual transformation, and rejuvenation. Even though I have just spent the last two days in intensive teachings and know I need to have good rest for another full day of teaching tomorrow, I will not miss this opportunity for my personal spiritual journey. Instead of sleeping, I sit in the Lotus Position, tuning my body, breathing, and visualizing inwards. I listen within, and the sound of the thunder and rain, reverberating throughout my body, joined by the raucous of the raging river coursing outside my room. I visualize the moonlight and the lightening within. Suddenly, inner sparks fly and I am momentarily blinded by my own inner lightening, the Golden Light. The roar of my inner thunder is deafening. Just as quickly, I feel myself enter into a tranquil state and and bathing in the silver moonlight. As feel I am on the verge of forgetting that I exist in this world, I hear a voice: “Welcome to my land!”

Oh yes, the Thunder God is with me! I respond with my inner voice: “TianZun 天尊 (Heavenly Noble One), I thought your land was my birthplace, not here, in France?”

Thunder God: This is one of my lands. Long ago, I battled with the Fire God in this area. The Fire God wanted to kill all the beings and destroy the world from here. He channeled the power of his Fire to create a huge volcanic explosion. As soon as I heard the explosion, I started pulling water in from either side of this land, from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and for months, sent strong storms to cool the land. The loss of life was heartbreaking. I tried to bring life back to this land through my tears, which transformed into the Ray-Pic Waterfall, which I left in place as a memorial to this time of great hardship.

Fig.1 The Ray-Pic Waterfall (I took this picture in the following day)

Me: “Of course, I now remember that the whole world is your land, and that all beings are your descendants. You transform yourself in different shapes and can appear in many different places at the same moment. There is a legend from ancient far east Asia about a cosmological event, which shifted our universe and reshaped the earth:

Once upon a time, there was a big fight for Di 帝, the imperial power between GongGong 共工 and ZhuanXu 顓頊. GongGong furiously hit BuZhou 不周 Mountain in the northwest of the world, which broken the Heavenly Pillar. That is why the sky now tilts toward the northwest, where the sun, the moon, and the stars run, and the earth sank in the southeast, the direction all rivers flow.

From this story, I can imagine the ancient cosmos, with Heaven above and Earth below, our Earth used to be in an upright position, with a completely vertical axis. Is it true that GongGong and Zhuan Xu from the story were you and the Fire God? That the epic battle between you caused a dramatic shift in the universe and the axis of the Earth has been tilted ever since?”

Fig. 2 - An image of GongGong

Thunder God: “Yes, you have the correct understanding about what happened. The legend GongGong, commonly depicted as the Water God, was me in serpent form (a serpent body and human head), and ZhuanXu was the Fire God, also the grandson of HuangDi 黃帝, the Yellow Emperor. To human observers, the event appeared as a natural disaster caused by the disharmony between Water and Fire.”

Fig. 3 - An image of Thunder God

Me: “I have heard this story about you since I was a little child — all about the catasrophe that reshaped the earth and obliterated almost every living being, and how then, on a new spring morning, as the sun’s rays first touched the earth, at the peak of a little island next to the mainland of the ancient Wu Kingdom, you, the Thunder God, emerged at the peak of the island as a handsome young man riding on your QiLin 麒麟, the mystical animal which represents new life, auspiciousness, and peace.

Fig. 4 - Thunder God riding the QiLin

You negotiated with the Sun God and you both agreed to make peace with each other and to work together to bring new life back to the earth. This island peak was later named Thunder God Mountain by my ancestors. It is still the place where the sun’s rays first reach the mainland China.”

Thunder God: “Yes. After the life returned to the earth in abundance, I transformed my QiLin into QiLin Mountain, to stand over and protect all the new beings. On the top of the mountain, I left an imprint of my foot in the stone when I leapt back up into the Heavens, for you all to remember that I had been in this land and wish for all beings to live together in harmony.”

Fig 5 - The footprint of Thunder God

Fig 6 - The pin is QiLin Mountain

Fig. 7 - The highlighted area is QiLin Mountain

Me: “As the sun’s rays first touched Thunder God Mountain, at GuiMao 癸卯 (Rabbit Hour) in a spring morning in DingWei 丁未 (Fire Goat) year, I was born in the fishing village nestled at the foot of your QiLin Mountain. However, I did not feel your great compassion there, as I was born shortly after the years of the Great Chinese Famine, and grew up with starvation. We lived in a time of fear, violence, and general disharmony. Even though my life is much more stable today, I still see wars between nations, violence among neighbors, disastrous storms, horrifying wildfires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and other destructive events are happening all over the world. Could you please tell me the reason for this? Are you still fighting with the Fire God for Di 帝, imperial power?”

…If you would like to know the answer I received from the Thunder God, please stay tuned for the next installment of my story, GuZhe.