The one who understands is my heart.
The Way is one person’s understanding, which can only be understood but cannot be expressed in words.
Each of us has different insights, perceptions, understanding and analysis abilities of the world. Although these abilities can also be improved through exercise, that only raises the overall lower limit. That's all - the upper limit, margin, and depth of talent are actually irreversible by human power.
Whether it is Buddhism, Confucianism, or Taoism, at the end of cultivation, you must pass the level of "enlightenment".
Start from the very beginning of learning: Learning is for the purpose of knowing. The more you know, the more you will understand. Only when you understand to the extreme can you think, and only when you think to the end... can you understand.
Of course, if you are the reincarnation of a god, a god descends to the earth, you will realize things when you encounter them, and your enlightenment will make you clear, and your practice will make rapid progress... Then you are cruel, and calling you an "innate master" is not enough. Too much.
But most of the people who seek Taoism in this world are still ordinary people. They still have to start from "learning" and move up step by step.
The stone steps in front of the Xuanqi Zong Mountain Gate symbolize this "road of seeking the Tao". Everyone has different difficulties in climbing up due to their different understandings.
When I first walked up the stone steps, it was the "learning" stage.
At this stage, every time a person takes a step on the stone steps, he will feel as if he is stepping on an irregularly shaped object. If he is not careful, he will slip, but use your eyes to see it. Well, I can't see any unevenness in the stone steps.
When you gradually adapt to this change, that is, when you reach the node of "knowledge", you will enter the next stage, which is the road to "communication".
In this section, in addition to retaining the "irregular stepping feeling" of the previous stage, the "gravity" on each stone step will also change: maybe you still feel when you take a step forward. Your feet are like a quagmire, and it takes a lot of effort to lift your knees. But in the next step, if you use the same force to lift your legs, you will lift them too high and too hard, and lose your balance.
This change of "light" and "heavy" is also random, and requires climbers to slowly understand and adapt to it...
If you can even adapt to this Now you can go to the last section, which is the section from "Tong" to "Si".
From here, in addition to the abnormalities on the stone steps, the environment around you will also begin to change. There will be a very strong mountain wind blowing around you, and the wind will continue to change directions. , there will also be a thin layer of frost on the surface of the stone steps under your feet, making it easier to slip when you step on them.
And if you finish this section, you can see the top of the mountain.
Some people may ask, how did you reach the top at the "thinking" stage? What about "enlightenment"?
Nonsense, if you have already enlightened after walking on the mountain road, what kind of teacher do you still want to follow?
Furthermore, in the final analysis, these stone steps are just a tool to test the beginner’s understanding. It does not mean that you have really reached the "thinking" stage after walking up these stone steps - walking. The stone steps are nothing more than a rough ideaEstimate the state you can reach and how many years it will take to reach this state.
In fact, generally speaking, as long as you can reach the "second stage", you will be fine. It doesn't matter if you can't go up next. If you have almost given up, someone will come to pick you up the mountain. .
However, it does not rule out that there are people with really low qualifications... who can't even complete the first stage. There is nothing you can do about it, even if Xuanqi Sect forcibly accepts you, you You won't learn anything, and it's not interesting to let you go to the mountains to do odd jobs and waste your life...
For example, Bai Ruhong, the "silver path" back then, got stuck in the "learning" stage; he walked for days and nights, rolled down countless times, and really couldn't go up, but He is a very "hard-core" person and refuses to give up. He looks like he is ready to die from exhaustion here to express his sincerity... The veterans of Xuanqi Sect have no choice but to look at the "character" he has shown before. When his son came up, he made an exception and took him up the mountain, taught him a set of basic martial arts, and became a registered disciple.
But this is the only special case in so many years, and to be honest, people in the Xuanqi Sect don’t like Bai Ruhong very much, because Bai Ruhong’s personality is different from that of the Xuanqi Sect. The "natural" family style was particularly unsuitable, so Bai Ruhong only stayed in the mountain for a few years before his master coaxed him to go down the mountain with the excuse that "you are more suitable for joining the world"; before he left, his master repeatedly warned him to From now on, when you travel around the world, don't use the name "Xuanqi Sect", because this sect doesn't want to have too much to do with the secular world.
Of course, Bai Ruhong also followed his master's teachings carefully. In the past few decades, he has never mentioned to anyone where he learned his martial arts.
It’s a bit far-fetched... Let’s go back to Huangdong.
Brother Huang is indeed not stupid. Not long after walking up the stone steps, he figured out the rules of the first stage.
But knowing the rules does not mean that you can get through it. Adaptation requires a process. You have to practice. As for how long it takes to master it, it depends on your talent.
Both Huang Donglai and Sun Yixie are the kind of people who think they are very talented, but they are slightly different in this area -
When Sun Yixie is learning something , usually he can’t wait to say “I understand” to something he knows little about, and then deceives himself, and then goes further and further down a wrong path, and reaches a place where no one may even have taught him. A strange field...
As for Huang Donglai, he is the type whose body cannot keep up with his brain, and it is easy to tell but difficult to do; when he learns something, he may really "get it" very quickly. ”, but what he understood at the theoretical level was difficult for him to do in practice.
This is similar to the feeling you have when you watch professional e-sports players live broadcast and play games. Maybe as a bystander, your thinking is very clear, your consciousness is higher than that of the master, and you can view a master from a God's perspective. The players in the group give you pointers, but when you actually go up and play by yourself, your mind goes blank. Add the bronze group operation, and try the gold group.I can beat you up.
In the end, I could only comfort and convince myself by saying, "I just don't have time to practice. If I had practiced hard, I would have been invincible."
However, one thing about Huang Donglai is worthy of recognition. When he is really willing to work hard to practice, or when he has to practice, he can slowly let his body catch up with his brain.
At the moment, anyway, he has drunk the "Guiyuan Dew" and is very energetic, and has already reached the mountain gate. It is absolutely impossible for him to give up this opportunity to "cultivate immortality" and go back. If so, all the hardships he had endured before would have been in vain.
So, he bit the bullet and started his journey to the "top".
One day, two days...
On the third day, Huang Donglai's eyes had changed.
In the process of constantly slipping, rolling, climbing, and sliding again, his mentality was repeatedly polished between collapse and recovery.
Gradually, he will no longer be frustrated by slipping, nor will he have too many emotional fluctuations due to upward breakthroughs. To use a more elegant and concise expression, this is called "not surprised by favor or disgrace". As everyone used it, A more popular and down-to-earth way of saying it is that a "shaker" has been awakened.
Finally, at dusk on the third day, relying on muscle memory, that is, the tactile response that has penetrated into the bone marrow, Huang Donglai completely adapted to the first stage of the stone steps, and thus started the second stage... …
Ordinarily, anytime after this, as long as he chooses to give up, someone will come to pick him up the mountain.
But...
Due to the change in mentality, Huang Donglai had no intention of giving up at this moment.
The sudden appearance of gravity rules did not waver him. He just started a new round of exploration and practice more cautiously.
Chunchen Zixin, who was observing him on the mountain, said: "It's bad, I shouldn't have given him Guiyuan Dew. Looking at his posture, he is preparing to walk for seven days and seven nights."
< p>He guessed right...Huang Donglai continued walking like this, and at noon on the sixth day, he successfully reached the third stage, which is the last section.
Actually, he is really lucky. Most people can walk up to three days on these stone steps. If they don’t give up, they will die of exhaustion or thirst. But Huang Donglai walked more than four days longer than others. Time to challenge, and always in a state of physical strength.
The key is that his mentality has never collapsed, or that he has never given up completely. He can pick himself up every time. This is another important reason why he can keep going.
However, he failed to finish the stone steps after all.
At dusk on the sixth day, Chun Chenzi couldn't stand it any longer, so he simply parachuted in and carried Huang Donglai up the mountain, lying to him and saying, "You have actually passed the test when you get here. No need to continue."
Huang Donglai also believed it. After all, he didn’t know what would happen further up. If he knew, maybe he would still propose"Uncle Master, I should be able to hold on for a day and a half. How about you let me try to climb to the top?" Such a request...
Anyway, at this point, Huang Donglai finally "succeeded in his apprenticeship" ", officially entered this Shushan - Xuanqi Sect.