14

Chen Xiyi Rejects Four Appointments from the Imperial Court

The written character for “leisure” is so structured that the “moon” is contained within a “door.” Busy as the moon is going through doors and windows, its light stays as serene and dispassionate as ever in its place in the sky. Only if one learns to be like the moon and find tranquility amidst the hustle and bustle of life can one attain true leisure. Some say that human life in this world is divided equally between the activities of the day and the leisurely slumber of the night. Little do they know that the spirits of those with much to occupy themselves with during the day are so disturbed that what engages their minds during the day recurs at night in their dreams. When even the sleeping soul knows no peace, what leisure is there to speak of? In olden times, there was a venerable immortal named Zhuang Zhou who dreamed that he had changed into a butterfly fluttering joyfully about. Upon waking up, he still thought he was an incarnation of the butterfly. It was his carefree and unfettered mind that produced the dream. Otherwise, how do we account for the fact that never has there been another man to claim such a dream among goodness knows how many people with a love for the pillow? Thus it will be apparent that even in sleep, there are those who fret and those who truly enjoy leisure. Run-of-the-mill daily activities aside, once you are a›icted with the obsession for fame and gain, a full night’s sleep may become a thing of the past. Therefore, there is an ancient poem that says,

As is said in Chen Tuan’s¹ Workings of the Heart, “A worthy man indeed is he who falls asleep the moment he lies down in bed; a man of leisure he is not who stays awake on his pillow.” So preoccupied are men of modern times with fame and gain that though they may lie in bed, their myriad thoughts keep them from getting to sleep. Hardly have they drifted into sleep than they wake up again with a start. Those who do indeed sleep endlessly in torpor, confusing days with nights, do so mostly because they wear themselves out by overindulging themselves in wine and sex, or because their minds are overly disturbed by harrowing thoughts. In all of these cases, sleeping is devoid of true enjoyment.

Now let me tell of Mr. Chen Tuan, who was matchless in the enjoyment of sleep. How do we know this? There is a poem as testimony:

Legend has it that Chen Tuan slept for eight hundred years at one stretch. But this is sheer exaggeration, for, granted that he did become an immortal in the end, how could he have slept for eight hundred years when he lived for only one hundred eighteen years? From this legend, we do get the idea, however, that he was more often asleep than awake. He twice retired to live the life of a recluse in famous mountains and four times rejected appointments of office from the imperial court. Throughout his life, he kept his distance from women and avoided the entanglements of human relationships. That was why he enjoyed true leisure and peace of mind. His sleep was not easily imitable, for it was induced by a breathing method unique to Taoists. Storyteller, what are the two mountains he lived on as a recluse? Which imperial appointments did he reject? Here is a poem as testimony:

As the story goes, Chen Tuan, courtesy name Tu’nan, nicknamed Fuyaozi and a native of Zhenyuan in Bozhou Prefecture, was known in his childhood as “the Mute,” for he had still not learned to talk by the time he was five or six years old. One day he was playing at the water’s edge when a woman in blue calling herself “the Hairy Maiden” carried him into a mountain, where she fed him ambrosia. Chen Tuan started to talk, and his mind was awakened. The Hairy Maiden stu ed a book into his upper garment and taught him the following quatrain:

Upon returning home, Chen Tuan suddenly chanted these four lines, to the great astonishment of his parents. “Who taught you these lines?” they asked. (The celestial qualities of an immortal come with birth.) While relating the whole story, Chen Tuan took out the book, which was recognized to be a copy of The Book of Changes [Yi jing], whereupon he began reading it aloud and gained a substantial understanding of the eight trigrams. Henceforth, he read every book that came to hand, but it was The Book of Changes that he kept with him at all times, sitting or sleeping. His other favorite books included The Yellow Court Canon and Lao Zi,³ which filled him with the wish to renounce the mortal world.

At the age of eighteen, when both of his parents died, he distributed all the family wealth among relatives and neighbors (Who else would be willing to do that?), keeping for himself only a stone tripod that he took with him to Mount Yin in his home county to live the life of a recluse. In his dreams, the Hairy Maiden taught him ways to cultivate his inner nature until his mind and spirit merged with the spirit of the universe. So devoted was he to this endeavor that he kept away from cities and towns altogether. In admiration for Mr. Chen’s fame as a man with the qualities of a celestial being, scholar-officials of the Later Liang and Later Tang dynasties tried to meet him, but to no avail. To visitors, the venerable Mr. Chen turned his back, refusing to rise from bed to o er greetings. Amid his snores, the visitors would sigh and take their leave.

During the Changxing reign period [930–33] under Emperor Mingzong in the Later Tang dynasty, the venerable name of Chen Tuan reached the emperor, who took up his brush-pen and wrote an imperial decree summoning him to court to assume an official post. A stream of messengers were sent to Chen Tuan, who, finding that he could not very well disobey an imperial decree, could do nothing other than follow the messengers to Luoyang, the capital of the empire. Once in the presence of the Son of Heaven, he clasped his hands in front of his chest in a gesture of greeting without prostrating himself upon the ground, to the great consternation of the entire assembly of civil and military officials. The emperor, however, did not take it amiss. Supporting Chen Tuan with his hands, he made the guest sit on a brocade stool and said, “I am so glad that you have come here over such a great distance. The good fortune of being in your illustrious presence would last me for three lifetimes.”

Chen Tuan replied, “I am nothing but a lowly rustic, no more useful to the world than a piece of rotten wood. Being unworthy of the great honor Your Majesty has done to me by summoning me for an official post, I humbly request that I be released back to the mountains to live the life that befits a rustic like me.”

“Since you are so good as to have come here,” the emperor insisted, “how can you leave right away, before I benefit from your teachings?”

Chen Tuan did not respond but closed his eyes and drifted o to sleep.

The emperor said with a sigh, “Such a venerable sage is not to be treated in conventional ways.” Thereupon, Chen Tuan was escorted to a guesthouse reserved for the most honorable visitors, where he was given the most elaborate service. Using none of the many pieces of fancy furniture provided, the venerable sage sat in lotus position all day long on a straw mat in meditation. The emperor paid him visits in the guesthouse, but there were several times when he happened to be asleep. On such occasions, the emperor simply turned away without venturing to wake him up. Convinced that this was by no means an ordinary man, the emperor showed him even greater respect and wished to bestow upon him a high post, an o er that Chen Tuan adamantly declined.

Feng Dao, the prime minister, proposed, “To my knowledge, of the seven human emotions,⁴ none is stronger than love. Of the six desires,⁵ none is stronger than that for sex. In the wintry rain and snow that are assailing us, Chen Tuan must be cold sitting all by himself on his straw mat. Your Majesty can have someone send him a jar of fine wine and select three beautiful women to see to it that he drinks the wine as well as warms his feet. If he does drink the wine and keep the women, Your Majesty can rest assured that he will accept the o er of an official title.”

Following this advice, the emperor selected from the palace three sixteen-year-old girls of matchless beauty who looked doubly striking when dressed up in finery. A court attendant was also sent to present Chen Tuan with a jar of fine wine brewed specially for the emperor. Announcing the imperial favors, the court attendant said, “The emperor is sending you fine wine and beautiful women to provide you with some protection against the unusually cold weather. Please do not decline the o er on any account.”

Without hesitation, Chen Tuan opened the jar and drank up the wine in one gulp. Nor did he reject the women. The court attendant’s report greatly pleased the emperor.

On the following day, after the morning court session was over, the emperor sent Prime Minister Feng to the guesthouse to invite Chen Tuan to see the emperor at court and to receive his titles. Thus instructed, Prime Minister Feng mounted his horse and went on his way. Do you think Chen Tuan would follow him to the court? Truly,

When the prime minister arrived at the guesthouse, all he found were the three women in an empty room. Chen Tuan was nowhere to be seen. “Where is the sage Mr. Chen?” he asked.

The women replied, “After drinking the wine sent by the emperor, Mr. Chen fell asleep on the straw mat. We waited and waited until he woke up at the fifth watch and said to us, ‘I regret to have no gift for you in compensation for having waited all through the night.’ Then he wrote a poem, and, after telling us to give it to the emperor, he put us in this room and went o . We have no idea where he is.”

Taking the three women with him, Prime Minister Feng returned to court to report to the emperor, who asked to see the poem. This is how the poem read:

The emperor heaved sigh upon sigh after reading the poem. He sent messengers to look for Chen Tuan in all directions, but no trace of him was found, not even in his former abode on Mount Yin, but of this, no more need be said.

Meanwhile, Chen Tuan had made his way to Mount Wudang in Junzhou Prefecture. Originally called Taiyue or Taihe, the mountain had as many as twenty-seven peaks, thirty-six cli s, and twenty-four ravines and was the place where Zhenwu⁶ perfected his inner nature and ascended to heaven in broad daylight. People of later times changed the name of the mountain to Mount Wudang, which meant that no one but Zhenwu could accomplish such a deed. It was on Nine Rock Cli on this mountain that Chen Tuan now started anew his life as a recluse.

One day, there came to him five white-bearded old men, who asked for his interpretation of the meaning of the eight trigrams in The Book of Changes. While expounding the text in detail, Chen Tuan marveled at the five old men’s ruddy complexion and asked how they had kept themselves in such good shape. They told him they used the hibernation method. What was this method? Well, in winter, with heaven holding its breath, all tortoises and snakes hibernate without taking in any food.⁷ There was once a man who used a tortoise to replace a broken bed-leg and ten years later, upon moving the bed, found the tortoise still alive, thanks to the way it held its breath. Having now acquired the hibernation method, Chen Tuan was able to abstain from food and to sleep for several months at one stretch. If it were not for the hibernation method, the pangs of hunger would have awoken him from his dreams.

Now a septuagenarian after having lived for over twenty years on Mount Wudang, he was visited again one day by the five old men, who said to him, “The five of us are actually five dragons from Sun and Moon Pool. This is not the place for you. Having benefited from your teachings, we are now here to escort you to a place more worthy of you.” Asking Chen Tuan to close his eyes, they carried him o . Chen Tuan felt that he was airborne, the whistle of wind and rain filling his ears. After a little while, he landed on the ground, heels first. When he opened his eyes, the five old men were nowhere to be seen. All he saw were five dragons disappearing into the sky. The divine dragons, with their magic power, had in fact whisked him over a great expanse of land to Mount Hua in the West.

Thus it was that Chen Tuan came to live on Mount Hua. Thinking it most extraordinary that there was no stove or pots and pans in Chen’s abode, Taoists on the mountain secretly kept him under observation and found that he did nothing but sleep.

One day, Chen Tuan went down Nine Rock Cli and was not seen for several months. The same Taoists thought that he had moved away. Later, in the firewood storage shed was spotted an object which, upon a closer look, turned out to be none other than Chen Tuan. Nor did anyone know how long he had been sleeping there, for no one had seen him until the pile of firewood was substantially reduced.

On another occasion, a woodcutter was cutting grass at the foot of the mountain when he came upon a dust-covered corpse lying in a gully. Touched with compassion, the woodcutter decided to give it a burial. As he lifted the body, whom did he recognize but Chen Tuan! “Why, it’s the venerable Mr. Chen!” he exclaimed. “I wonder how he ended up dying in this place.” (This is exactly what is meant by Zhuang Zi when he said, “The body is a dead tree, the heart a heap of cold ashes.”)

Hardly had he finished before Chen Tuan straightened his back, opened his eyes, and said, “Who woke me up from my happy sleep?” The woodcutter roared with laughter.

Wang Mu, the prefect of Huayin Prefecture, personally went to Mount Hua to visit Chen Tuan. When he reached Nine Rock Cli , all that met his eyes were bare rocks with not even a semblance of a hut anywhere within sight. “Where do you sleep?” he asked. Chen Tuan gave a great gu aw and, by way of a reply, intoned a poem that said,

Wang Mu o ered to cut trees and build him a temple, but he turned a deaf ear. This took place during the Xiande reign period [954–60] under Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou dynasty. Upon hearing of the above quatrain, the emperor realized that the poet was nothing less than a sage and summoned him for inquiries about the future of the empire. The following quatrain was what Chen Tuan o ered as an answer:

Emperor Shizong was named Chai Rong. As Chai meant “firewood” and Rong meant “luxuriant plant growth,” he took the first two lines of the quatrain to be a fitting description of himself. The phrase “stand the test of time” seemed to him to be also an auspicious prediction, only he did not realize that if the character “wood” were topped by a canopy, the new combination would form the character “Song,” which was to stand for the Song dynasty, to be founded by Emperor Taizu in replacement of the Zhou dynasty. Chen Tuan had the foresight to know that the Song dynasty was to last long.

Chen Tuan declined Emperor Shizong’s o er of the highest official rank and insisted on being permitted to return to the mountains. Taking the line “Sealed as they are by the white clouds,” the emperor conferred upon him the title Sage of the White Clouds. Later, at the Chen Bridge mutiny, Zhao Kuangyin⁸ assumed the throne by letting his men throw the yellow robe on him. When the sage learned of this while riding to Huayin County on the back of a mule (Where does the mule come from?), he clapped his hands and indulged in hearty laughter. When asked the reason for this outburst of mirth, he answered, “What a great stroke of luck for you people! The empire is now blessed with a new ruler who will bring peace to the land.”

Sometime before, Chen Tuan had been walking leisurely down the road one day, shortly before the demise of the Later Tang dynasty, when he noticed, amid the crowd of civilians fleeing from the oncoming Khitan⁹ troops, a woman carrying two children in a bamboo basket that was hanging from her shoulder. Chen Tuan intoned two lines that said,

Who do you suppose the two children were? Well, the older boy was Zhao Kuangyin, the future first emperor of the Song dynasty, and the younger boy was Zhao Kuangyi, later to be Emperor Taizong. The woman was to be Queen Mother Du. As early as twenty-five or twenty-six years ahead of time, Chen Tuan recognized the future Song emperors with true mandates from heaven.

On another day years later, Chen Tuan was touring the city of Chang’an when he encountered the Zhao brothers and Zhao Pu drinking in a wineshop. As he also entered the wineshop to buy some wine, he saw Zhao Pu sitting on the righthand side of the Zhao brothers. Pushing Zhao Pu away from the table, he said, “You are but a minor star near the Polar Star. How dare you occupy this seat of honor?”

Zhao Kuangyin marveled at these remarks. Someone who knew Chen Tuan said, pointing a finger at Chen, “This is Chen Tuan, Sage of the White Clouds.”

To Zhao Kuangyin’s questions about the future, Chen Tuan said, “The stars that represent you and your brother are much larger than the one that represents him.”

Henceforth, Zhao Kuangyin’s confidence in himself grew. Later, when he became ruler of the empire, he sent messengers several times to o er Chen Tuan a post in the imperial court—o ers that Chen Tuan declined. When Emperor Taizu wrote a decree in his own handwriting to force the matter, Chen Tuan explained to the messenger, “It is imperative that the founder of an imperial dynasty demonstrate to the world his adherence to the rules of propriety. I am but a worthless man of the mountains. To prostrate myself when in the emperor’s presence is against my nature, but to refrain from prostrating is an a ront to His Majesty. This is why I would not presume to comply with the decree.” Thereupon he wrote a quatrain at the end of the decree:

At the messenger’s report, Emperor Taizu laughed and put the matter aside.

After his succession to the throne upon Taizu’s death, Emperor Taizong, remembering the encounter in the wineshop, also summoned Chen Tuan for an audience for old time’s sake, with the promise of exempting him from standard etiquette. The emperor also gave him a poem that read,

Having read these lines, Chen Tuan put on a Taoist cap, a cotton gown, and a pair of straw sandals, and made his way to the Eastern Capital, where he was granted an audience with the emperor in a side hall. With nothing more than a greeting with his hands clasped in front of his chest, he said, “Being an unworthy rustic, isolated from the world, I am not used to the custom of kneeling. Please forgive me, Your Majesty.”

The emperor asked him to take a seat and asked him about ways to achieve the Tao. Chen Tuan answered as follows: “An emperor’s first concern should be the well-being of the whole empire. What good would you do your subjects if you achieve immortality and ascend to heaven? With a sagacious emperor and virtuous ministers attending so assiduously to the a airs of the empire and cultivating good morals, blessed indeed are all corners of the land. Your good name will live for a hundred generations to come. To achieve the Tao is to do no more than this.” (Too bad neither the First Emperor of Qin nor Emperor Wudi of Han heard these words of wisdom.)

Emperor Taizong nodded in appreciation of these words. His respect for Chen Tuan grew deeper. “Please tell me if there is anything that you wish for,” he said.

“I have no other wish than to have a quiet room.”

Thereupon, the emperor granted him the privilege of taking up residence in Jianlong Taoist Temple.

At the outset of an expedition against inhabitants of the region east of the Yellow River, Emperor Taizong sent a messenger to ask Chen Tuan about his chances of victory. Mr. Chen wrote the character “desist” on the messenger’s palm. The emperor was displeased but, as the army was already on its way, did nothing to halt the expedition. When a second messenger was sent to Chen Tuan, Chen was found soundly asleep, his snoring audible outside the door. The following day, he was found to be in the same slumberous state and remained so for a total of three months. As was expected, the commanders and soldiers of the expeditionary force returned with no victory to their credit. The emperor was sighing over this when whom should he see but Chen Tuan in a Taoist cap and casual clothes, sailing nonchalantly up the steps of Gold Bell Palace. The emperor was greatly astonished at this self-invited visit. Chen Tuan declared, “I am here to bid Your Majesty farewell, for I am returning to the mountains today.”

Struck with a sense of loss by this announcement, the emperor o ered to confer upon him the title of Imperial Taoist Master and to build him a hall so as to give the emperor easy access whenever the need arose to seek his advice. Chen Tuan, however, was unyielding in his refusal to accept the o er. He presented to the emperor a poem which read,

He continued, “I will come to see Your Majesty in twenty years’ time.”

Knowing that Chen Tuan was not to be detained, the emperor held a grand banquet, to which were invited the prime minister as well as the officials of the Hanlin Academy. Every guest composed a farewell poem to mark the occasion of Chen Tuan’s departure. All of Mount Hua was granted by imperial decree to Chen Tuan exclusively for his cultivation of the Tao, free from intrusion by outsiders. With the titles Sage Xiyi [Tranquility and Nonaction] and Master of the White Cloud Cave, he was released to go o into the mountains. This took place in the first year of Emperor Taizong’s Taipingxingguo reign period [976].

By the fifth year of the Duangong reign period [988–89],¹⁰ Emperor Taizong, who ruled the empire for twenty years, had not yet designated a crown prince. His eldest son, Yuanzuo, prince of Chu, burned the palace to vent his anger at not being invited to an imperial family reunion feast on the ninth day of the ninth month. In a towering rage, the emperor disowned him, reducing him to the status of a commoner. The emperor’s favorite was his third son, Yuankan, prince of Xiang. Wishing to know what was in store for his third son, he thought to himself without saying anything out loud, “Chen Tuan, the sage Xiyi, is the best physiognomist there is. Many years ago, in a wineshop, he predicted that my brother and I were destined to be emperors and Zhao Pu to be a prime minister. I wish I could have him come to help me make a decision.” He had hardly finished this train of thought when a court attendant appeared to report, “Chen Tuan, hermit of Mount Hua, is at the palace gate requesting an audience.”

Much startled, the emperor summoned him in and asked, “What is the purpose of your visit?”

“I am here to dispel any doubt you may have in your mind.”

With hearty laughter, the emperor said, “I always knew you to be a prophet, and indeed you are! I have not yet decided on the successor to my throne. Yuankan, prince of Xiang, being blessed with a magnanimous and benevolent nature, has the qualifications of an emperor, but I do not know if he is destined to be one. Please do me the favor of taking a look at him in his residence.”

Accordingly, Chen Tuan proceeded to the prince of Xiang’s residence, but he had barely reached the gate before he turned back.

The emperor said, “I asked you the favor of taking a look at the physiognomy of the prince of Xiang at his residence. Why are you back here so soon?”

“I have already been there,” said Chen Tuan. “All the men leaving and entering the residence carrying out orders have the looks of future generals and ministers. What need is there for me to look at the prince himself?”

Consequently, the emperor’s mind was made up. On that very day, he issued an edict declaring the prince of Xiang to be the crown prince. He later became Emperor Zhenzong. Chen Tuan stayed in the capital for one more month before taking his leave suddenly one day and returning to Nine Rock Cli .

Upwards of a hundred of his followers, including Mu Bochang and Zhong Fang, built their abodes at the foot of Mount Hua, where they listened to his lectures day and night. The only thing he held back from passing on to his students was the hibernation method he had acquired from the five dragons. One day, he sent some followers to cut a stone chamber into the highest cli hanging over the Zhangchao Valley (Named after Zhang Kai, courtesy name Gongchao, of the Southern Han dynasty, who lived a hermit’s life on Mount Hua) to the northeast of Hairy Maiden Peak on Mount Hua. The men did not dare disobey. Upon completion of the stone chamber, Chen Tuan and his followers went for a look. Standing on that highest rock, Chen Tuan said, pointing at the greenish clouds down below, “This is what the Hairy Maiden meant when she said, ‘Into the green clouds I go on my way.’ And so in this very spot shall I depart this life.” His words were still ringing in the air when he sat down in a lotus position, waved the followers o , closed his eyes, and, with his right hand supporting his cheek, breathed his last at one hundred eighteen years of age. The followers gathered in a circle around the body and kept vigil for seven days, during which time his complexion was as when he was alive and his body and limbs remained warm and soft, emitting an extraordinary fragrance. They then made a stone casket to encase the body. Covered with a stone lid, the casket was bound with iron chains tens of feet in length and placed in the stone chamber. After the departure of the followers, the rock split into two precipitous cli s with multicolored clouds lingering around the opening for months. This place came to be known later as Xiyi Gorge.

During the Xuanhe reign period [1119–25] under Emperor Huizong, there was a Taoist from Fujian Province by the name of Xu Zhichang who was touring Mount Hua when he caught sight of some iron chains hanging down from the cli . He climbed up the cli by the chains and came upon the stone chamber, where he saw a casket with its lid out of place. He raised the lid and saw, lying in the casket, the remains of an immortal with a ruddy complexion and a sharp fragrance that assailed his nostrils. With two bows, Xu Zhichang put the lid back into place (Surely the stone lid does not need help from human hands. It’s just that Zhichang is the one predestined to be there) and climbed down the cli again. As he happened to be in Emperor Huizong’s favor and held the exalted office of minister in charge of Taoist a airs, Xu Zhichang reported his findings to the emperor, who sent him to Xiyi Gorge again with an o ering of imperial incense to bring the remains back for enshrinement within the palace walls. When he reached the edge of the gorge, the iron chains were nowhere to be seen. All that he saw was a heavy shroud of mist and clouds over precipitous cli s. With a sigh, he went back the way he had come. To this day, Sage Xiyi’s remains still lie in the Zhangchao Valley, hidden from all human eyes, as these lines attest: