Soul Leaving the Body

"Climb the pagoda, then leap out... The key must be here..." Hong Yi studied this method of cultivation. As the wind blew over him, he felt as though he stood naked in a world of ice and snow. He shivered with cold, on the verge of freezing to death at any moment. "Hmm?" Hong Yi suddenly remembered a passage from the Caotang Notes. More precisely, his whole self felt light as a feather, floating above his head, and he could see his own body. Heaven and earth were no longer what they had been! He looked around. Everything seemed as usual. He tried turning the pages of the book with his hand, only to find that his soul could not move it at all. Clearly, the soul was an invisible, intangible thought. The method for leaving the body with one's soul began with bathing and cleansing the body, then sitting in meditation, reciting incantations, and forming hand seals. Once the heart had settled completely, one visualized a pagoda seven stories high and climbed it step by step, then suddenly leaped upward from the highest level. The soul would then leave the body. The more one read, the more naturally one learned to discard the rough, superficial parts. That was why Hong Yi read so quickly. But when it happened in a dream, it was unconscious and lasted only an instant, leaving no time to experience it. Now, however, he was making it happen of his own accord. He could experience the sensation of his thoughts—his soul—leaping out of his body. The method of cultivation recorded in the text was very complicated. It was called the Pagoda Visualization Soul-Exit Method. At the same time, he felt like a drowning man who had fallen into the vast ocean without knowing how to swim, in danger of being swallowed by the waves at any moment. "Was I dreaming, or did my soul really leave my body?" His body breathed faintly, its eyes tightly closed. It looked as if he were asleep—or perhaps had fainted. Once he had calmed down, Hong Yi closed his eyes and visualized a seven-story pagoda above his head. When he reached the top, he suddenly leaped with all his might! Hong Yi had thoroughly memorized the principles scholars studied, so he did not need to review them. What he wanted to read now was the essence of the ancient Daoist arts of immortality. In his view, those moral precepts and commandments were dubious, different from orthodox doctrine, and of little use. They were a hodgepodge, after all. He closed his eyes and recalled the time when, as a child, he had followed his mother up the Precious Moon Pagoda, the tallest tower in Yujing. There was a table beside the stone chamber, with brushes, ink, paper, and an inkstone on it. As he wrote, his expression grew peaceful. Yet he could not move at all, as if frozen stiff, swept into a whirlpool while drowning, and utterly exhausted. Hong Yi did not panic. His thoughts turned: "They say that people with weak bodies can leave their bodies in their sleep at night. It's nothing extraordinary." But there was one thing different! At that moment, only one thought filled Hong Yi's mind: he desperately wanted to return to his body. After all, this sometimes happened in dreams too—he would see his own body. Compared with the Martial Classic, the Daoist Classic was far more abstruse. Hong Yi skipped over all of that. He knew that the ancient Daoist arts of immortality did not include such things. These commandments and moral teachings had been mixed with scholars' doctrines by Daoist sects seeking to curry favor with imperial authority. Leaving the body with one's soul was no simple matter. How could the world outside be so dangerous? "This is the feeling..." He cast no shadow beneath the lamplight, as though he did not exist at all. His surroundings had not changed. "I've got it..." "No wonder the scriptures say the body is a raft for crossing the sea of suffering. So when the soul leaves the body, it's like falling into the ocean after leaving a ship. It's terrifying!" At that leap in his imagination, as if jumping off a cliff, Hong Yi suddenly felt his body grow light, as though he were floating gently upward. The scenery before him remained the same: books all around, stone walls on every side. And so he sank into thought. "Huh? My soul didn't leave my body? I'm still perfectly fine?" Hong Yi sat on a stool at the table, poured water into the inkstone, and ground the ink. Listening to the "shh, shh, shh" of the grinding, he gradually settled down. The incantations above were intricate, and the gestures were complicated too. Just looking at them made his head spin; one could imagine how long it would take to master them. After imagining himself leaping, Hong Yi opened his eyes, but saw nothing unusual. He was still himself. He pinched his hand and could still feel it. Hong Yi thought, "Leap out, leap out..." As these thoughts came to him, a sudden understanding dawned in his heart. A smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. Hong Yi calmed his mind and steadied himself once more, then tried again. It still did not work. Once settled, Hong Yi spread out a sheet of paper and wrote the character for "calm" three times in a row. His consciousness gradually blurred. A flash of understanding suddenly came to Hong Yi. "My soul has left my body!" "Why can't my soul leave the body? Is there some crucial step I'm missing? Could it be..." The sensation was incredibly mysterious, almost impossible to believe. The Precious Moon Pagoda had thirteen stories. Climbing from one level to the next, one could almost look down over all of Yujing. Back then, his mother had held his hand as they reached the rooftop. The wind blew, and the people below looked no bigger than fists. His head had spun, and his legs had gone weak. The feeling had been awful and terrifying. Even Hong Yi, looking at these hand seals and incantations—which were themselves full of moral precepts—could feel a headache coming on. Just thinking about memorizing and practicing them was enough to make his head hurt. Helplessness and weakness. A thought rose in Hong Yi's heart. Yet Hong Yi saw his own body! Suddenly, a fierce, bitterly cold gust blew in from outside the stone chamber. Though Hong Yi could not reach the state of the great scholars, who could sit down and calm their hearts like still water, he could use a series of actions—grinding ink, writing, and the like—to settle his mind. "What complicated incantations and hand seals. But..." Hong Yi began to wonder whether he had fallen asleep and was dreaming. He was invisible and intangible. Whoosh! Whoosh! "So leaving the body with one's soul is this dangerous..." Hong Yi felt as if his soul were about to scatter into nothingness. "Huh, the Pagoda Visualization Soul-Exit Method? Bathing, washing one's hands, reciting scripture? Incantations? Hand gestures? These methods can steady the mind? And then the soul leaves the body?" As Hong Yi skimmed through the text, a cultivation method that took up a long passage suddenly caught his eye. The entire passage was full of abstruse principles, most of them about morality and commandments. It warned that those who cultivated the Dao must keep their minds free of distracting thoughts and never harbor evil intentions. They also had to obey all kinds of commandments: be loyal to the ruler, love their country, never spread the teachings recklessly, never display their immortal arts, and never do evil. There were also many teachings about cause and effect and retribution. Rumble! "The Great Dao is simple, yet those Daoist priests insist on making complicated hand seals and incantations. In truth, bathing, chanting, and forming hand seals are all ways of calming the mind. When a scholar sits down, his heart naturally grows as still as water. He doesn't need any of that." Though it was only an illusion, recalling what had happened in his childhood still made Hong Yi shudder. Suddenly, he steeled himself and leaped upward with all his might! His whole self sprang down from the tower!