Ancient Tales of Cultivation: Consummation Stories of the Taoist School (II): Hou Dao-Hwa

Nobody knew where Mr. Hou Dao-Hwa was originally from. He claimed himself that he was from Er-Mei Mountain (in southwest China). He wandered around for most of his lifetime until he finally settled down at the Yong-Ler Temple in a place named Herjung. One day, a gust of wind suddenly came, blowing a lot of dust and gravel into the air. Most buildings of the Yong-Ler temple were toppled. Except Hou Dao-Hwa, who chose to stay, all the other Taoist priests left for other temples. Since Hou was familiar with carpentry, he took a lot of effort to rebuild this temple.

After the temple was rebuilt, other Taoist priests continued to come. The Yong-Ler Temple gradually recovered to its prosperity. Mr. Hou worked very hard everyday to maintain the cleanliness of the temple. He also opened up wasteland to grow vegetables, thus providing foods to the priests in the temple.

Mr. Hou was a very earnest, humble person. Every priest or tourist who visited the temple enjoyed his warm reception and hospitality. He did many things to the guests—whether it was to bring tea and drinking water to the guests, to arrange lodging, or to prepare warm water for shower, or to wash/sew the clothes. Many guests mistook Tao-Hwa for a servant. But Mr. Hou did not mind others’ attitudes, and still provided services to the guests.

Tao-Hwa liked to read very much. He was frequently held a book in his hands and read it out loud. When asked why he studied so hard, he replied, “There are no foolish immortals in the heaven.” His statement always made people laugh.

Time flew, and decades passed. One day, the pillars of the temple were seen to emit colorful light. The priests were highly amazed by it. It was said that a long time ago there was a Taoist priest, whose last name was Liu. Once upon a time, Liu made pills of immortality in the temple, and had a dog swallow them. The dog was killed right away. All the people were so scared that nobody dared to take the pill. The remaining pills were hidden in the pillar of the temple by Liu. This has been originally considered to be a rumor, however, the strange light in the temple reminded Hou of this anecdote.

One day, a severe storm came and damaged the pillars of the temple. Hou climbed up the pillars to carry out the repair. He saw the light again. He searched through the pillars carefully, and found a small wooden box., from where the light was emitted. Hou opened the wooden box. He found another wooden box. He opened it again, and found another even-smaller wooden box. The last box was very delicate, and had gilded surfaces. Once opened, pills were found inside. Hou believed these pills must be the pills of immortality left by Liu. He swallowed all of them, but that did not bring any physical reactions. Hou thought these pills might just be fake.

Several days later when he went to the market for shopping, Hou drank a lot of liquor in a restaurant. Upon returning to the temple, he grabbled a knife, climbed up the big tree in front of the temple, and started chopping off the branches. While chopping, he said, ”Do not let the branches block my way of levitation.” People in the temple tried to stop him, but Hou did not listen to them. Before long the tree was almost cut down. People could not help but say that Hou had gone crazy. On the second day, the leader of the county happened to visit the temple. When he knew that the big tree had been badly cut by Hou, he was very angry. He scolded Hou, but the latter did not want to argue.

Seven days later, Hou got up from the bed in the morning. He took a shower, got dressed, and went into the temple to burn incense. He looked into the sky for worship, and said to himself that there would be immortals coming to bring him away to heaven soon. His words were treated as nonsense. A while later, however, cranes were found to hover on top of the pine trees in front of the temple. Divine music was heard. Hou suddenly flew off into the tree. With his legs crossed, he sat without making any movement. Not until now did the people in the temple realize that Hou had become an immortal. They wasted no time, bowing farewell. The leader of the county who scolded Hou also kneeled down to apologize for his rudeness. Hou waived his hand to express his thanks. He sat on a colorful cloud, and flew away amidst the sound of divine music.

There have been many stories about the consummation of cultivations in Taoist school, Buddha school and fairy tales. “Levitation in broad daylight” is one of the consummation forms. No matter whether it is riding a crane, a dragon, or a cloud, the levitation in broad daylight is very glorious and magnificent.