|
 One
of Grandmaster Qin's Sifus is a legendary Daoist hermit, a lineage
holder of the Daoist Xuanpu School.
In
the left picture, Sifu was performing one of his supreme techniques
- "Turn Grass Wood into Medicine" - with Qin standing
at his side.
Sifu
burned paper into ashes, connected with Medicine King in the higher
dimension, and kneaded them into pills. Suddenly, the fragrance of
these pills filled up the room. They had all become medicine pills!
Sifu them gave these high-dimensional medicine pills to his fellow
villagers in exchange for their donations to build temples.
That
day was no different. The quiet village submerged into sunset with
primitive beauty - this was in the remote Loess Plateau in northwest
China.
The year
was in early 1990s.
Qin
had come to Sifu's home for a week. Dinner opened at 4pm as usual,
as there were only two meals a day here, and the "brunch"
was offered at 10am.
On the
dinner table were coarse noodle and pickles as usual.
The head
of the village came to Sifu with two pieces of paper.
"Good
news! Good news! The famous writer Ke in Beijing asked you to go to
the capital, and has donated to 4,000 Yuan to sponsor your trip. Look,
this is the money order slip. Not a small amount, 4,000 Yuan!"
Sifu
didn't have much facial expression.
He was
like that during the day, devoid of any emotion, or any trace of being
glad, angry, or sad.
"Shen,
tomorrow we are going to town, we can return this money order slip
by the way."
Shen
was Qin's senior co-disciple, and Sifu Fan's first disciple.
"Sure!"
She had been here for two years, and he was cheerful everyday. He
was a top graduate student at Liaoning Medical School. But he chose
to come here before getting his Ph.D. - although most time he just
worked in the field as a farmer with Sifu, helped with chores at Sifu's
home, and took care of his kids!
"Do
you know Sifu is most unhappy about other people interviewing, writing
or taking pictures of him. In particular, high energy pictures, or
pictures showing special abilities are out of the question, no matter
how much you pay...!" Shen moved his stool closer, and lowered
his voice in telling Qin who was still new here.
As the
gown of night descended, stars decorated the sky above the Loess Plateau
in a poetic way. Qin went into the courtyard to take a deep breath.
The moon and stars here were so close to the Earth. They seemed to
be reachable if you just could jump up, which was quite different
from in Beijing!
Suddenly,
scores of villagers came into the courtyard in a row, each holding
a torch, yet everyone was silent! People then looked for places to
sit down in Sifu's "meeting room," two to three people in
a group. In China's countryside, the farm house may be a few times
more spacious than those in cities, despite poor rural conditions.
"What
do you want to ask me for today?" Sifu opened his "session"
loudly, as if he was chanting a folk opera.
"Sifu
becomes a strikingly different person at night," Shen secretly
informed Qin.
"Gorbachev
- the head of the Soviet Union, do you think he will normalize the
relation with China?" A man wearing white shirt like a local
official asked.
Shen
told Qin that this official came here specifically from the town.
As the town's vice mayor, he was also privately Sifu's formal disciple!
"It
still won't happen at this stage," Sifu replied.
"But
I read in the newspaper in town that it may happen..."
"Sometimes
newspaper doesn't tell the truth..." Sifu insisted.
Another
official-looking man asked, "Sifu, as you know we came here today
specifically to ask you when the Heaven can grant us some rain? If
the drought continues, then our folk may not have enough to eat this
whole year."
"Bad
karma! This was because of the bad karma committed by humanity,"
suddenly Sifu seemed to get upset. He stood up, "I have already
'communicated' with the 'Above' a few times ('Above' refers to the
Rain Department in Heaven), but they didn't agree."
Then
Sifu squatted down on the ground, and held his head in deep thoughts
for a while.
"Let's
do this. This Friday afternoon, we will set up an altar to ask for
rain. The information said it might bring us a big rain for half an
hour."
Villagers
all smiled broadly. "Thank you Sifu! Thank you Sifu!" (The
story of asking rain to be continued elsewhere)
"Bring
the cigarette!" Sifu suddenly lied down on a bamboo chair. CO-disciple
Shen came forward and lit up a home-made cigarette for him.
Qin
was quite "confused" as she had just come here for a week,
and Sifu's behavior tonight was so different from the serious Sifu
during the day!
Wei lowered
his volume and secretly told Qin, "Tonight you will see a
good 'show.' This is a special behavior prior to Sifu getting into
a special high energy state." Wei is Sifu's second disciple,
a college student from the elite Shanghai Jiaotong University who
had come here over a year.
"Where
are the bricks?" Sifu asked. All the people pointed their fingers
to one direction - on the northeastern corner of the courtyard, there
were a few piles of bricks, about half the height of an adult.
"Let's
go!" As soon as Sifu finished his sentence, people all stood
up and walked out through the wood door in a row towards the mountain
behind the village. Everyone picked up a few bricks (3-4, or 7-8 bricks
depending on one's ability). Qin also picked up two bricks and
joined the team.
Sifu
walked alongside with Qin, and told her, "I'm building seven
temples on the mountain. Tonight you can take a look."
The seven
temples on the mountain are dedicated to different higher beings,
such as "Quanyin Temple," "Lineage holders of Daoist
Xuanpu School," and the relatively bigger "Medicine Buddha
Temple"...All temples are small, country-style, yet real. As
one walked in, one could feel the Qi field inside temples was significantly
stronger.
Scores
of villages put the bricks in their hands down in front of different
temples, then quietly walked back from the mountain to Sifu's home,
going back to their original seats.
They
behaved in such a discipline way as if each of them followed an invisible
sound of direction.
"OK,
it is already over midnight 12 o'clock. Let's begin," Sifu re-started
his session.
Shen
and Wei were quick and familiar in putting a wok, a basin, yellow
paper, matches, and a cup of water on a square wood table. Then Sifu
burned the yellow paper.
This
kind of yellow paper is widely used in China among folk worshiping,
and can be bought from any big temple.
Sifu
chanted some mantra as he burned the yellow paper. Qin's two co-disciples
urged her to get closer to Sifu. There were only Sifu and his three
disciple near the table, while others voluntarily kept some distance.
As the
yellow paper was burned in the wok, a few more piles were added until
the wok was filled with ashes.
Sifu
grabbed a few handfuls of ashes from the wok, and put them in a bowl.
Then Sifu poured in a cup of water, and kneaded the ashes with his
bare hands just like flour while continuing his chanting non-stop.
Suddenly,
Sifu talked to Qin, "You can knead this one."
Qin
tried her best to knead the ashes with water, but they just wouldn't
stick together.
Sifu
smiled and closed his eyes in a special state while continuing his
kneading.
Suddenly
Sifu turned around and said, "Good, you can knead again."
When
Qin put her hands into the bowl again, a miracle happened!
The yellow
paper ashes in the bowl did become sticky like flour with an amazing
fragrance.
Slowly
Sifu kneaded the "medicine flour" into a stick, then broken
into pills. After he used up all the "medicine flour" in
the bowl, he got more ashes from the wok to make into medicine pills.
Qin was very surprised and joyous, "This is the Daoist supreme
technique of 'making medicine pills from grass and wood,' which supposedly
has been lost over a thousand years ago, and I only read about it
in ancient books!"
Suddenly
it seemed that an invisible force pushed on Qin, throwing a new
idea into her mind. She returned to her room, and came back with a
camera. When Qin was back to the meeting room, she only had enough
courage to hide the camera in her hands behind her, knowing the Sifu
was most unhappy to be taken pictures and exposed when he was in a
high-energy state connecting to higher dimensions.
"Why
didn't you come closer?" Sifu spoke, "Why are you afraid
to take pictures?" Sifu didn't even raise up his head, let alone
discontinuing with his kneading of the medicine pills. His volume
was loud, but very little facial expression.
"Yes,
thank you for Sifu's permission." Qin brought the camera to
the front, and took a series of pictures of this unique demonstration
of "making medicine pills from grass and wood." This may
be an importance scene in the future history of human science.
"Shen,
could you take the camera and take a picture of Qin and me together?"
Sifu turned around and explained to the crowd of villagers. "Qin
was a university teacher. She knows 'up' and 'down' - pointing to
Heaven and Earth, and she has a special mission."
"Therefore,
today we gave her an exception," villagers laughed. "Qin
is the only female disciple in our historical lineage that I recruited
myself." Sifu added.
"She
has a special mission..." Qin smiled "bitterly."
"A special mission - this word contains so much pressure,"
Qin talked to herself silently. Because of this word "mission,"
she has gone through much suffering that ordinary people cannot imagine.
With
Sifu's authorization, Qin took a series of precious photos from
different angles about the whole process of this performance (see
one of the pictures above).
...
The second
day, when the sky was just getting bright, Qin was already sitting
on back of her senior co-disciple's bicycle, which fluctuated wildly
on the small dirt road on the Loese plateau. After half an hour, Qin
was exhausted and felt her bones coming apart.
"We
will get there in another one hour and a half," Shen explained.
Sifu was riding another bicycle in the front.
After
two hours, they finally arrived at the town, returned the money order
from the famous Beijing writer in the post office and took care of
some businesses. Around 2pm, they left the town for the village.
Sifu
abruptly said, "Bicycle is so cumbersome. I will just walk on
the water home."
Qin
was shocked when she saw Sifu jumped into the river...
<More
to come...>
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