(Minghui.org) Fei Changfang was an official in Runan City during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD). His story is documented in “Collective Biography of People with Magic Skills” in the book History of the Later Han Dynasty.
Every day, Fei noticed an old man selling medicines in a market that Fei managed. After the old man sold all his medicine at dusk, he would jump into a wine gourd and disappear. No one at the market saw him do this except Fei. He knew that the man was no ordinary person.
Wanting to transcend the ordinary world, Fei visited him one day, bringing wine and cured meat as gifts. The old man told him to come back the next day, so he did. The old man then took him into the wine gourd.
Inside the jug was another world. Fei saw luxurious pavilions, buildings, and other exquisite architecture. The old man told him that he was once a god but became human as punishment for mistakes he had made. “Now that I have paid my dues, I shall return. Will you come with me? There is a small jar of wine downstairs and we should have a drink before we depart.”
Fei sent an employee to retrieve the wine jar, but it was too heavy for him to lift. Fei sent ten more people, but they still couldn’t move the jar. The old man laughed, went downstairs, and brought the jar upstairs, holding it with one finger. Doing this was the old man’s way of letting Fei see the differences between ordinary people and immortals. The jar was only big enough to hold about 200 ml (7 oz.), but the two drank all day and did not finish all the wine it contained.
Fei expressed an interest in going with the old man to pursue the Tao and become an immortal but he did not want his family to worry about his disappearance. The old man chopped off a section of bamboo as tall as Fei and told him to hang it behind his house. After Fei followed the instructions, the bamboo stick turned into the image of Fei. His family thought that he had hanged himself and buried him.
Fei followed the old man along a remote mountain path covered with thorn bushes. The old man left him with a group of tigers, but he wasn’t afraid. The old man then had him sleep in an empty room, above which was a giant rock attached to a frail rope being chewed by animals. Fei had no fear even when the rope was about to break, passing yet another test of life and death.
When the old man returned, he told Fei he was “truly teachable.” He then asked Fei to eat feces with maggots crawling throughout. Fei could not do it.
“What a pity, you almost attained the Tao,” the old man said and sent him back to the human world to continue his practice.
Before Fei left, the old man gave him a talisman and said it would allow him to fend off ghosts and evil spirits. He then handed Fei a stick and told him to ride on it. “It will take you home,” he said.
Fei got home in no time. His family did not believe it was him because he had been gone for over ten years. In his mind, only ten days had passed. He told his family that they buried a bamboo stick and had them open up his coffin to prove that he hadn’t died.
From that day forward, Fei displayed supernormal abilities. He could heal illnesses and expel ghosts with a whip. Sometimes, people would see him in different places that were hundreds of miles apart on the same day. He became well-known, and his story was told far and wide.
However, when Fei lost the talisman the old man gave him, ghosts killed him.
Su Che, a renowned scholar and official in the Song Dynasty, commented on Fei’s death in his book Brief Record of Longchuan. Su believed that Fei did not lose the talisman—he lost the heart to truly pursue the Tao. As a result, his master could no longer allow him to keep the supernormal abilities given by the talisman that expelled the ghosts. This caused his death.
In the stories about cultivators, it is always the masters who choose the good people to be disciples they will teach. Fei had great potential to practice the Tao, and that was why the old man tried to help him eliminate his worldly notions by showing him the world in the wine gourd and the bottomless wine jar. The old man did not give up on him after he failed the final test and gave him a talisman to let him continue his practice in the human world. In his book, Su said that the talisman allowed Fei to perform miracles, which led people to constantly praise and worship him. When he wanted to build his reputation and gain materially, he stopped pursuing the Tao and was no longer allowed to keep the supernormal abilities provided by the talisman.
If a person achieves certain things through his practice, but begins to focus on his achievements, he will lose his heart for the Tao. The standards and requirements for people who want to achieve greater levels of the Tao or Buddhahood are naturally higher and more strict than for ordinary people. We must learn a lesson from this story.
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Category: Traditional Culture
