Ancient Cultivation Story: Old man of Mount Tai

Organised by Ouyangziyun

When one of the emperors in the Han Dynasty, Liu Che, was hunting one day, he came across an old man in a field on the side of a road. There was white light, several metres long around the old mans head. He looked just over fifty years old, with a face that shone like a young mans. At a glance, one could tell that he was extra-ordinary.

The Emperor approached him and asked which Tao [roughly translated as “The Way”] or method he was practising. The old man replied; “At the age of 85, I was old and weak and was fast approaching death. My hair was white and my teeth were gone. It was at this time that I met someone who had achieved the Tao. He taught me a special diet and made a deity pillow for me, in which there were 32 pieces inside; 24 out of the 32 were to accommodate the solar terms, while the remaining 8 poisons were to protect against evil winds from all directions. I practised cultivation according to what he had taught me and afterwards my body became younger, my hair turned black, my teeth grew and my body was so light, like a swallow, that I could walk three hundred miles every day. I am now 180 years old.”

Later, the old man went to Mount Tai. He returned home to visit every five or ten years. However, he stopped visiting after he was 300 years old.

(Source: Biography of Immortals)

Translated from Chinese at;
http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/200301/16101.html