The words of someone skilled at talking it up, never present a reflection of the true story. This always rides on the back of deficiency or a lack of substance. Otherwise there would be no need for all the noise.  

Watch the front very carefully! On the surface, it only masks the opposite. But we know the opposite is there. It has been there the entire time.  

Someone that only shows you their smiley face is hiding their insincerity.  

Someone that only shows you anger is hiding their fear.  

Someone that only shows you sorrow is hiding their potential for joy.  

In dealing with people, see the opposite in anything and everything.

This will allow you to see the whole story before the end of the first chapter.  

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!  

from ‘The Danger of the Secret’

Kolita drags Upatissa up to the summit of the mountain where the healer Cinnabar Yang resides. Cinnabar Yang is well built, with a tortoise-shaped figure and a crane-shaped back, big ears and round eyes, and a thick and long beard as well as whiskers. He wears a cassock with a palm-bark rain cape and greets the newcomers at the mouth of his cave.

Covered with pure white snow, the Nine-Room Grotto of Precious Immortality overlooks the fertile land of Chengdu. It is here that the two travelers receive their initiation into Chinese spirituality. Tall ancient trees reach to the sky. Emerald vines blot out the sun. Ravines and marvelous peaks stand mysteriously covered over and dressed in the moss of a thousand or more changes of the seasons.

‘People wishing to cultivate their true and essential nature should not seek fame, wealth, or profit. Rather, they should eliminate worry and anger, abstain from sex and alcohol, as well as strong smelling vegetables such as onion, garlic, and chili.’

‘Live in a cloistered residence if possible where you may have occasion to free your mind and read sacred books to perceive their inner meaning without getting caught up in the words. Penetrate herbal lore and you will also have the means to support the Tao and transcend the mundane. Strong personal attachments should not be made, but companions should be chosen to help you on your journey. Those with an illuminated mind, deep wisdom, and strong determination are the best. Don’t forget that the mind must let go of the world of desire, the world of forms, and the world of formlessness. Then it will become pure and your spirit will reside with the immortals and sages. Be attached to nothing and the Tao will be realized!’

The journeyers look at one another dumbfounded. This is certainly a moment to savour.

The First and Last Goodbye

Kolita tells his father that everyone must follow his own destiny in order to fulfil soul’s purpose. It is a prelude to his immanent departure and a gesture of respect. Deep down, Kolita is ready to go. He understands he cannot live without passion and expect to be at peace with his soul. There are too many questions unanswered and too many problems left unsolved.

‘Because my consciousness is beginning-less I know that I have taken countless rebirths in samsara,’ he says to the man who once was his idol and a Brahmin well versed in the classics.

‘I have already had countless bodies… if they were all gathered together, they would fill the entire world, and all the blood and other bodily fluids that have flowed through them would form an ocean! So great has been my suffering in all these previous lives that I have shed enough tears of sorrow to form yet another ocean!

‘In every single life without exception… I have experienced the sufferings of sickness, ageing, death… being separated from those I love… and being unable to fulfill my wishes. If I do not attain permanent liberation from suffering now, I shall have to experience these sufferings again and again in countless future lives.

‘From the very depths of our hearts… can we not at least try to abandon our attachment to worldly pleasures and attain permanent liberation from contaminated rebirths?’

Question:

What would you say to your son upon hearing that?

‘The man of Tao is established only in that which generates peace.

Thus he is naturally like the metal hidden in the crust of the hills or the pearl submerged in the valleys of the deep.

And therefore he does not look on affluence either as the source of joy or upon lust as the consummation of power.

In this way, he keeps his nose to the grindstone of spiritual accountability…

and he is never tempted to mull over the past…

nor is he prone to entertaining wild imaginings about the future.’