Peace in the Troubled World
GuZhe 瞽者, Chapter 3
TianDiBuRen YiWanWuWeiChuGou
天地不仁 以萬物為芻狗
Everything is treated as a bristlegrass when there is no compassion remaining between heaven and earth
— DaoDeJing 道德经, Chapter 5
Previously, from chapter 2
Thunder God, “Every time you seek an answer, remember to always act as GuZhe 瞽者, a blind man, and look within, meditate, resonate with the situation, and check your life path. This is how you will find your answer.”
Huuuuunng-Looooong-Loooonnng, a loud thunder shook my dream-like state and the Thunder God suddenly disappeared from my inner screen. I emerged from my meditation state. Oh yes, I could start seeking the answers through my own life experiences.
Here I am, returning from my spiritual journey to this troubled realm.
Dying, dying, dying…
I have been practicing spiritual cultivation for seven lifetimes. My last BingJie 兵解, an esoteric Daoist technique used to transcend the soul and let the physical body die, was on the battle ground during World War II. Following the advice of my master, I hid my soul in a sacred cave next to the East Sea in order to reshape my spirit. This sacred cave, WeiYu 委羽 Heavenly Cave, was ranked by the ancient immortals as the second best cave for spiritual transformation.
About 4,700 years ago, the Yellow Emperor himself spent quite a lot of time cultivating in this cave to achieve his immortality, and hid his special book on alchemy and talismans deep within this cave before he transformed. Today this cave is found within the Thunder God Mansion.
After two Chinese zodiac cycles (24 years), it was finally time for me to reincarnate back to this Dusty World to be of services to others. Little did I know I was coming to the world at a crazy time, with deadly typhoons and other natural disasters, the Vietnam War, US race riots, the Red Guard and the Great Revolution in China, civil wars around the world, a war brewing in the Middle East, all making massive claims on human life.
I knew that I would encounter many difficult situations again: my own physical health issues, the emotional challenges of everyone affected by violence around the world, continued rapid destruction of the natural world, hardship and hunger in and around my community, and of course the vicissitudes of being human in day to day life. I understood this process would be a vital part of my journey to immortality. The most important thing was that I had found a decent family in the Thunder God’s land for my rebirth, a family that would support me moving through a troubled world as best I could. And of course, my spirit had already chosen a perfect fit - a woman with strong Yang Qi, to be my mother. I would need her strong Earth Qi and Metal Qi to be able to hold my coming life with stability and to refine my talent Qi. Though her typical Earth type body lended itself to be lovingly nicknamed BigChubby her whole life, her name is JinYue 金玉, Golden Jade, a name which was given to her by a professional Chinese GanZhi 干支 astrologer when she was a baby. She carries the powerful Metal Qi I needed to rarefy my spirit.
I hoped that I would be able to implement the advice I had received from the Thunder God, to be able to resonate with the GuZhe state, that of a true Blind Man, and find inner peace, no matter what chaos was going on in the world around me. I will drop into this state now, first by ChuiLian 垂簾 — closing my spiritual curtains (the upper eyelids), then by FanTing 返聽 — listening within and finally by GuanZhao 觀照 — observing my inner self through my breath. As my spiritual light begins to shine forth, I replay my life story on my spiritual screen, and share some it with you, in hopes to shed some insight into some of the answers you might be seeking.
With my inner eye, I see my birth place. In the far east end of TaiPingYang太平洋—the Great Peace Ocean, lies the small TaiPingBanDao太平半島—Great Peace Peninsula. I zoom into the edge of the peninsula, and here lies a basin-like small cove, right at foot of QiLin 麒麟 mountain (which you may remember me describing in chapter 1, The Land of the Thunder God)
At least 1200 years ago, the early settlers of my hometown area migrated from Central China to the south, to FuJian province. About 600 years later, ancestors from this group were forced to migrate again, and came to the Land of the Thunder God by means of small wooden sailing boats. Each boat could hold about 10 people, both for long voyages and fishing expeditions. When at last they discovered a magical place of mountains embraced by water, an ideal FengShui spot for them and their future generations to prosper, they decided to settle down and name their new village, TongPanAo 桶盤嶴, Wooden Plate Cove.
The village, just as its name suggests, has held my peoples’ language, culture and traditions deep within her DanTian (the elixir field in her lower belly) for hundreds of years. Theses early settlers were not only fishermen, but also stonemasons, carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, noodle makers (I loved watching them make MianGan 面干, a special kind handmade long noodle), and more. They built our village in the same style and construction as their previous hometown HuiAn 惠安, the “architecture town of China,” in Fujian 福建 Province, in order to preserve their traditions in this new paradise. If we were to hike over the mountains from our isolated coastal village just 10 minutes to a neighboring village, we would have to speak the “real” local WenLing 溫嶺 language, as none of them could understand a single word of our Fujian language. Even today, some craftsman still carry and pass on the skilled of their ancestral Fujian arts.
There is a stream that runs through the village to the cove’s sandy beach. At the mouth of the stream, where it meets the ocean, I see the familiar YuWangMiao 禹王廟, (Temple of Emperor Yu, who successfully controlled the floods and established the first Chinese dynasty, the Xia 夏 Dynasty, around 2070 BCE ) on the west side of the stream. ShuChangLi 樹場裡, the Log Field Courtyard, which is my birth place, lies on the eastern side of the stream. As you could guess from the name, ShuChangLi was originally built for storing logs. The traditional buildings here were made from stone and wood. The stonemasons chiseled giant chunks of the stone from our local mountains and shaped them into large cuboids for building. The builders would have to buy logs from elsewhere and float them back through the ocean to our village cove via small sailing boats. They would let the logs soak in sea water for another week before bringing them into ShuChangLi to dry and then store.
ShuChangLi held the biggest courtyard in town. The courtyard was edged by residential rowhouses, with each family having their own private entrances. The outer walls of the yard were build with stone, and the front walls and the walls between the houses were made of timber. The buildings on the east and west side of the square were three stories high. The northern side were two stories, and the southern side was only a ground level shed. The middle of the square was covered with rectangular flagstones. Each piece stone is about 2 square meters (2m x 1 m). You can imagine that the structure of my yard allowed sunshine and northern wind to blow coming through to help keep the timber dry. My family has lived in the same house in the middle of the eastern side for four generations. My mother is still living there.
It was around the time of Mao 卯, the Hour of the Rabbit (5-7am) on ChunFen 春分, the vernal equinox day of DingWei 丁未, the year of the Fire Goat, when my mother, BigChubby, first started having strong contractions, just as it the moment for me to return this world approached. At the time, it was only my grand mother Ying 英 (Flower) was able to attend my mother, as my father Fu 甫 (Great) was out fishing with his team on the same style wooden sail boat that my ancestors had used when they first settled in this village. There was no way of knowing in advance how many days he would be away each time he went on a fishing trip. Even though he was the top graduate of the town elementary school, he became a fisherman when he was 12 years old. He had dreamt of continuing his education so that he could have a better job than the hard life of a fisherman would entail. Unfortunately, my grandfather, Wu 五 (Five, he was the fifth son of my great grandparents), died suddenly just as my father was graduating elementary school, and my young father had to let go his dreams and become a fisherman in order to make money for his family. Even in my childhood, it was very common for the boys to quit school between the ages of 10-12 years old in order to start working and earning money for the family. About two thirds of my classmates dropped out school before they graduated from elementary school.
My brother Jian 建 (Establish) was two years old when my mother started having contractions and had been sent to stay with my maternal grandmother, who lived in a nearby village GuiYao 桂嶴 (Osmanthus Cove). My grandmother Ying knocked on the thin wooden planks that separated our rooms from the neighbors’ in order to wake them up and ask for help to fetch the village midwife, Barrel Maker Grandmother.
Barrel Maker Grandmother lived just about 100 meters away, on the upper street from ShuChangLi, the Log Field Courtyard. Everyone in the village knew her as Barrel Maker Grandmother because her husband was the only wooden barrel maker in the village and we depended on him to custom make all the various size barrels, buckets, plates, and birthing-buckets we villagers needed for daily life. While everyone knew where the Barrel Maker lived, I don’t know if any of villagers knew the couple’s real names! Barrel Maker Grandmother delivered several thousand babies in her life time, indeed, she delivered three generations of my family.
Barrel Maker Grandmother came quickly, knowing exactly where to go because she had delivered my father in this same house, as well as all the other babies who had been born in this yard for over her lifetime. No need for any guidance to find our home, she pushed open our unlocked front wooden door. Here on the first floor, like all other families houses, she found a small kitchen and living room with the same kind of flagstone floor as the floor of the ShuChangLi square, GangZao 缸灶, the clay jar cook-stove at the northwest corner, a small square wooden table surrounded with 4 small wooden stools, all of which took up most of the space in the entire room. Barrel Maker Grandmother climbed the handcrafted wooded ladder up on the north side of the room up to the second floor.
The second floor was Grandmother Yin’s home. Yes, I call it her home because all her belongings were here: a bed, a small square table, a long ceremonial table, two trunks, two stools. Each of these nice handcrafted wooden furnishings were wedding gifts from her wealthy parents. She cooked all her meals for herself, in her GangZao which stood next to the wooden ladder that went up to the third floor. Oops, there was one more very important thing I almost forgot to mention, which is the dung barrel that sat next to the foot of her bed. Please keep in mind that when I grew up, our village had no real connection to any of the modernized parts of China, we had no electricity, no motorized vehicles (no bicycles even), no roads (only foot trails), no piped water, and of course, no flush toilet. Oh yes, I also forgot to mention the two clay water jars that also sat in this 15 square meter room, which held water that she carried up from our well. Grandmother Yin had lit the small traditional oil lamp to make it a little easier for the Barrel Maker Grandmother to see as she climbed past, up to the third floor.
Third floor was our family’s room. My parents shared their bed with my brother and I, for many years. The furniture on the third floor was very similar to that found on the second floor, with the exception they were newer because they were my mother’s wedding gifts. My parents’ room had also been upgraded with an American oil lamp, which brought more brightness to the third floor than Grandmother Yin had. Barrel Maker Grandmother climbed into the small bedroom with a large pair of scissors in her hand. She placed her scissors at the side of the birthing-bucket, which was a traditional and indispensable wedding day gift to every woman in my village for generations, which sat on the floor next to the bed.
After checking how my mother was doing, Barrel Maker Grandmother asked her to get up and sit on the edge of the birthing-bucket. The birthing-bucket was the height of a regular seat but had a very shallow bottom, so that it would gently catch each new baby as it entered into the world.
My mother gave a total of three pushes within the next 10 minutes. The Heavenly Cave, where my soul had been waiting, was only 49 km away. I left my sacred cave, and after just a few minutes through the time tunnel, under great pressure and pains, Barrel Maker Grandmother eased me into this world with her gentle hands. First push, she delivered my head. Second push, she delivered my body. Third push, she delivered my bottom and legs. I laid in mother’s birthing-bucket without crying, with eyes wide open and gazing. She was smiling, with her grey hair bound on top of her head and eyes full of loving silver light. She helped my mother lay down on the bed and scooped up me in her arms. The moment her gaze left my face, I sensed the grief energy of the world and made a loud crying sound, like roaring thunder that shook the building. My mother held me on her chest and soothed me, and I closed my eyes, and according to my mother, kept them mostly closed until I was two years old.
I chose this moment to reenter the troubled world because the universe would fortify me with peaceful and harmonious Qi which would allow me to develop my strength physically and spiritually over the coming years. I will discuss how the exact time of one’s birth influences ones life in the next chapter - stay tuned!
Thank you so much Master Wu for writing your memoirs to share with us.
Thank you Master Wu for sharing your history with us. ❤️