Chapter 80: Carefree Wandering

In a guest room, a young man was silently reciting an ancient text:

“In the Northern Sea, there is a fish, its name is Kun. The Kun is so vast, one cannot tell how many thousands of miles it spans. It transforms into a bird, called Peng. The back of the Peng, too, is of unknown length, stretching thousands of miles; when it rises in fury, its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky.

This bird, when the sea stirs, prepares to journey to the Southern Sea. The Southern Sea is the Celestial Pool. ‘Qi Xie’ records tales of the strange and marvelous. In its words: ‘When the Peng migrates to the Southern Sea, it lashes the water for three thousand miles, rides the whirlwind up ninety thousand miles, and departs, resting only in the sixth month.’

Wild horses, drifting dust—these are all life breathing upon one another. The blue of the sky—is it its true color? Or is it that it stretches so far away, beyond all reach and fathom? When one looks down from such a height, perhaps it appears just so.

If water does not gather deep, it cannot support a great vessel. Pour a cup of water onto a shallow hollow and a blade of grass can float upon it; set a cup upon it and it will stick fast, for the water is shallow and the vessel too large. If the wind does not gather force, it cannot support great wings.

Thus, only at ninety thousand miles does the wind lie below, and only then can one ride the wind. Only after bearing the azure sky on its back without hindrance, does the great bird plan its journey south.

The cicada and the fledgling dove laugh at it: ‘We spring up, fly a short distance, and settle on a branch. We do not travel far, but return to the ground. Why would we ever wish to travel ninety thousand miles to the south?’ Those who venture to the wilds return after three meals, their bellies content. Those who journey a hundred miles prepare food for the night; those who go a thousand miles gather provisions for three months.

What do these small creatures know? Small knowledge cannot comprehend great knowledge; short life cannot understand long life. How can we know this is so? The morning mushroom does not know the dusk or dawn; the summer cicada does not know the change of spring and autumn—this is the shortness of their lives.

In the south of Chu, there is a spirit known as Mingling, for whom five hundred years is a single spring, and five hundred years a single autumn. In ancient times, there was a great tree, the Spring Tree, for which eight thousand years made a spring, and eight thousand an autumn. This is the measure of great age.

Yet, now Pengzu is famed for his longevity and is compared with the rest of humankind. Is this not lamentable? Tang once asked Ji: ‘To the north, beyond the reaches of hair and eyebrows, lies the Sea of Darkness, the Celestial Pool. There is a fish, thousands of miles across; none know its length. Its name is Kun. There is a bird called Peng, with a back like Mount Tai and wings like clouds hanging from the sky. Riding the whirlwind, it rises ninety thousand miles, pierces through the clouds, and bears the blue sky on its back. Only then does it plan its southward journey to the Southern Sea.’

The turtledove scoffs, ‘Where could it possibly go? When I leap upward, I rise only a few yards before descending again, and I flit among the brambles and weeds. This, too, is the utmost of flight. Where else is there to go?’ This is the difference between the small and the great.

Thus, those who understand how to serve an office, behave within a village, align their virtue with a ruler, or command a single state, see themselves in just this way. Yet even Song Rongzi laughed at them. Whether the whole world praises him, he is no more encouraged; if the world condemns him, he is no more discouraged. He is settled within the boundaries of inner and outer, discerning between honor and disgrace—and that is enough. As for the world, he is not frequently moved.

Yet, even then, there are things not yet attained. Liezi rode the wind and traveled with ease, returning after fifteen days. Yet even he, in seeking happiness, was not yet wholly free, for although he escaped walking, he still depended on something. But those who ride the order of heaven and steer by the six breaths, wandering without end—what do they depend upon?

Thus it is said: The perfected person has no self, the spiritual person achieves nothing, the sage has no name…”

At nearly the same moment, not far from Mount Wudang, Hua Feng was immersed in the ‘Wandering Beyond’—this very passage that generations of martial heroes had contemplated within the Flame Emperor’s Secret.