Seeking Immortals

The moment he landed on Lan Yingxing, Li Qing transformed himself into tens of thousands, blending into this billowing mortal world, and his figure can be found everywhere.

The snakehead who eats big and small, the king tiger who roars in the mountains, the beggar who can't eat enough, the mother who educates his children... Whether he knows the truth or not, his views on Tao are all heard by Li Qing.

"These are indeed the Tao, but not the Tao I asked for..." With a murmur, Li Qing glanced elsewhere.

Li Qing was walking in the mountains, and the grass and trees were calling: "More sunshine, more rain."

This is the way of vegetation, which belongs to the way of life.

Li Qing found this kind of returning to the ordinary question very interesting, and he saw many sides that he had never touched before.

Any small path is sublimated and opened, and it will be the most reasonable way when it touches the ultimate.

The Tao of mortals is the simplest. Li Qing found that there is no pressure to dominate this Tao. He asked all the way and integrated these mortal ways into the Tao.

He saw a broader side, and just started to ask mortals, and he gained a lot.

Regardless of whether it is feasible to dominate all the Dao, at least Li Qing has seen the possibility of dominating the Mortal Dao, and he does not need to specifically suppress the Mortal Dao. He can already exercise the power of domination when he sees, hears, and feels it.

Walking along, Li Qing came to the bank of a small river, and saw an old farmer took a pair of notched fishing nets, and was fishing in the river.

Once the net was lowered, all the big fish escaped through the gap.

"Old man's net is torn and can't catch fish. Why don't you mend it a few times to make it complete. It shouldn't be difficult." Seeing this scene, Li Qing was very surprised and stepped forward to ask questions.

At this moment, Lan Yingxing is full of his incarnations, communicating and asking questions with all kinds of creatures.

"The net is broken, so why repair it?" The old farmer smiled, and threw the net into the river again, not caring that he didn't catch anything.

Li Qing looked at the net again, it was indeed broken and there was no need to mend it.

This pair of nets was actually sewed by the old farmer's wife himself. When his wife Xiyu sewed this pair of nets, he said: "For people like us, we can feed ourselves by growing food, and there are no chickens and ducks. Why bother to use fishing nets?"

"The net has a mouth, and it can't hold the small fish. I opened another opening in this pair of nets, so that the big fish can have a chance to escape."

The old farmer's wife has passed away. This pair of fishing nets is the old farmer's sustenance. He came to cast the nets, not for fishing.

It is impossible for the old farmer to mend the fishing net.

"The Tao is like this net, in fact, it does not necessarily require perfection. Dominating the extreme of the avenue does not necessarily dominate all the avenues, and there may be deficiencies." Li Qing thoughtfully.

"The Dao is fifty, the sky is fourty-nine, and people are one of them."

"Differences between similarities and differences, there are gaps in the avenue, but how to find the boundary of this 'missing'?"

Li Qing uttered again: "Dare to ask me, an immortal asked me first, and I thought, what is Tao?"

"I don't know what immortals and Taos are." The old farmer closed the net again, but found nothing, and said with a smile: "I don't understand, and that Tao doesn't exist at all. The Tao of immortals is the pursuit of immortals."

"For this river, the fishing net does not exist at all, but the fishing net is the Tao. When I put the fishing net in the river, I cast the Tao in Hanoi."

"When the fish is in the net, the fish will have the way; if the fish escapes from the gap, it will lose the way again."

"In my opinion, the Tao is not needed and does not exist at all. It is the bondage to the fish."

"I'm an old farmer. If you talk to me about Taoism, I don't need Taoism. That thing is useless."

The old farmer dragged the net and walked away laughing.

These words, like a bell in the morning and a drum in the evening, awakened Li Qing, the Dao was simplified, and the ultimate Dao he pursued was uttered by the old farmer in simple words.

After Dao Zunren broke through the road of true immortals, the avenue was like a net, and the monks were caught like fish, becoming a bondage. Li Qing's Taoism was extremely extreme, and he wanted to break through the shackles and jump out of the avenue, just like the free Dao fruit jumping out of heaven, earth and people.

At this moment, Li Qing thought of the third step to break through the road of true immortals, jumping out of the avenue.

The avenue is like a net or there are gaps, he is like a fish in the water, as long as he finds a gap, he can jump out of the avenue and reach the ultimate.

...

The dialogue between Li Qing's incarnation and mortals was staged all over Lan Yingxing.

The Prime Minister's Mansion in the capital of the Ming Dynasty welcomed a special guest.

"Ask?" The prime minister said solemnly, "Tao is the power in my hands!"

Li Qing asked: "My lord, would you like to give up the Dao and be free and at ease?"

"It's not so easy to let go of power. I have offended many people. If I let go of power, I won't be able to achieve great happiness." The prime minister waved his hand.

Li Qing committed a crime and was thrown into prison. He asked the jailer, "What is Tao?"

The jailer turned his face and said sharply: "The Tao is the law! If you want to go east, you dare not go west! Be honest!"

Li Qing asked the butcher, the butcher shook his shoulders, and said with a smile, "Tao is the butcher's knife in my hand!"

Every mortal has a different view of Tao, but most of them regard Tao as a higher-level object, a tool to exert authority, which is the same as the way of immortality.

The monks also used the method to improve their cultivation and exert their authority.

But it's just a tool, and it can be thrown away.

Li Qing found that the Tao in the eyes of mortals is more in line with his way of respecting people. Ordinary people don't know the Tao and don't respect the Tao. Even if the immortal asks, the mortal will consider the "Tao below the human".

Monks seek the Tao and fear the Tao, but they cannot give birth to the concept of "human beings are above the Tao".

Li Qing kept asking, integrating the way of mortals into his immortal way, breaking the path of true immortals, and he continued to move forward.

In the blink of an eye, twenty years have passed, and Li Qing has a deep feeling.

"The realm after breaking through the path of true immortality may be called Daoxian."

Another ten years later, Li Qing integrated thousands of mortal ways into several bodies. From the perspective of complementing the way and seeking common ground while eliminating differences, the mortal way and his way belong to the same relationship.

"But it doesn't seem to be enough. The Dao is endless. I can't simply classify the undominated Dao as 'the lack of the Dao'."

"Even if I dominate all mortal ways, I still cannot ignore the ways that other monks pursue."

On the second step of Dao Fairyland, Li Qing encountered a big problem. He saw a feasible way, but he couldn't dominate all the avenues, and he couldn't see the lack of the avenue.

If the gap in the Dao is found, the second and third steps of the Dao Fairyland can be expected to go through.

After Li Qing uttered the immortal question of "what is Tao", Lan Yingxing has been discussing "what is Tao" with enthusiasm for the past thirty years, and the creatures on the planet have never dissipated.

In many areas, mortal Taoists who are keen on seeking Tao have appeared. They want to solve the confusion of immortals and get great opportunities.

In the north of Lan Yingxing, there is a secular country called Yang Guo.

The Yang Kingdom is a country with great poetry and books, and it is known as Lan Yingxing's ancient etiquette civilization. All the ways of enlightenment are passed down from this country.

Most of the famous Confucianists came from the Yang Kingdom, and the respected Confucianism and Taoism were called saints.

The leader among the saints in the sheep country is called the master.

Master studied heaven and man all his life, and when he was fifty years old, he was called the Venerable of Literature and Taoism. But Master can't forget the scene thirty years ago, a young man walked up to him and asked him what is Tao.

The Master did not blurt out his views on the Tao like the ordinary old farmer did. If he did not understand the Tao, he could not answer. Seeing that he did not answer, the young man left.

Watching the young man leave, the master couldn't calm down for a long time. The young man didn't reveal his identity, but the master knew that the young man was the immortal who asked the mortals.

In the eyes of immortals, the respect of literature and Taoism in a mere mortal country is nothing.

From that day on, the master abandoned what he had learned in his early years, and devoted himself to seeking and explaining the Tao, becoming a pure Taoist. He studied the Tao and wanted to explain it to the immortals.

"What is Tao... This old man has learned about heaven and man, and he has learned about the past and the present, but after thirty years, he still hasn't found the answer. Immortal..." Among the oil lamps and candles, the master flipped through the record of the question written by himself, and kept asking himself.

Over the years, the master has been asking people, exchanging ideas, and organizing them into a thick transcript of his questions. He is already an octogenarian.

...

"This transcript has a lot of explanations on the Tao, but I understand that none of this is the Tao requested by the immortal." The master shook his head.

Just after dawn, a disciple was already waiting in front of the Master's door: "Teacher, Mr. Murong from Mount Lao has returned from his study tour, but he wants to ask questions."

"Go." The master replied in the room.

A group of people set off from the master's house, Mr. Murong's hermitage, in Laoshan outside the city, it took some time to visit.

Halfway through the trip, the weather was not good and it was raining lightly, so the Master and others had to go to the wild temple in the mountains to take shelter.

There are many people sheltering from the rain, including scholars carrying a basket of books on their way, mountain people chopping firewood, and business travelers passing by.

"Good rain, good rain." The master became interested, and asked the mountain people directly: "My friend, what is Tao?"

The mountain people didn't know the master, but seeing that the master was dressed in extraordinary clothes and was very old, they didn't dare to neglect him, and said politely: "I don't know."

"What about you?" The master looked at a business traveler again.

The business traveler pointed at the sky and said with a smile: "There are many kinds of Taoism, and they are innumerable. For the rain outside, Taoism is the sky; for me right now, Taoism is an umbrella."

"Interesting." The master nodded, "The Tao is indeed endless. The old man is troubled by the Tao of the immortal, trying to find the Tao that the immortal wants to ask."

The master is communicating with others, but the scholar at the side is looking at the book in his hand with complete ecstasy.

Seeing the scholar's expression, the master was quite satisfied and said: "Your scholar, what book do you read, do you know what Tao is?"

The scholar was alarmed, closed the book, cupped his hands and said: "Xiaosheng is not a scholar, he is only a scholar, it is hard to tell why, the book he read is the chronicles of Kyushu."

"Kyushu Chronicles..." The Master knows a lot of books, so he naturally knows this book, and said: "This book is a history book, which has been handed down from three thousand years ago, but the content in the book is all fabricated, which is different from any period of history, and its language is vague. , It is difficult to understand, and there are so many characters involved, you need to read carefully to understand it.”

"Sir, it is true." The scholar guessed that the master was a master, so he was even more polite.

The Master continued: "The other books you read are those in the book basket."

The scholar spread out the books in the basket, and there were a series of books related to Kyushu, such as Romance of Kyushu, Fengyun of Kyushu, Biography of Lu You of Kyushu, etc.

The master pondered: "These books are all novels based on the evolution of Kyushu annals."

"Exactly." The scholar became interested, and said with a smile, "Xiaosheng likes novels, especially novels related to Kyushu annals. It can be said that he has read all related Kyushu novels and created new ones himself. Kyushu story book novel."

"But Xiaosheng later found that no matter how he created a new Kyushu storybook novel, he could not exhaust the history recorded in Kyushu annals, so Xiaosheng gave up the storybook novels and focused on Kyushu annals."

"Every time you read it again, you will gain a lot."

"Sir, if you really want to ask me 'what is the Tao?', reading through this Kyushu Chronicle is the Tao that Xiaosheng asked for."

Talking unintentionally, listening with intention, the master praised: "Well said!"

The master was about to write down the scholar's words, only to hear the lightning and thunder, the strong wind, the torrential rain, and the great turmoil of the world.

A young Taoist came facing the torrential rain and lightning. The rain stopped three feet away from the Taoist, and the wind stopped three feet away from the Taoist. The Taoist's eyes were full of Taoism.

"It's you!" Master trembled, he recognized the young Taoist, who was the immortal who asked him thirty years ago.