Quite often, when my male and female pupils approached me, their eyes filled with tears of despair due to the seeming hopelessness of their situation, be it love or economic problems, I would apply a simple technique to change their inner picture of the world, their way of thinking and attaining their goals – a very simple technique indeed. Guess what? Yes, indeed, I would take a large piece of paper and a brush and would write some hieroglyphs, and then I would encourage my pupils to meditate while looking at it, telling them that looking upon those magic symbols was the key to their situation.

No, I was not cheating them. That was a simple shaman technique. Some elements of this technique are used by modern psychology. Nowadays it is called ‘working with submodalities’ and ‘goal behaviour’. But no matter what elements modern psychology borrowed from ancient practices, this would be just leaves torn from a living tree, doomed to death and oblivion.

Well, I will write about it too, some day. But now, let us go back to that day, the longest day in my life.

So, the spring of 1184.

.......

I was sitting on the slope of a mountain, coming back in my thoughts to that delightful moment and experiencing again and again that ambrosial feeling. A smile was wandering over my lips. It was not the meditative smile of the Buddha, it was the mischievous smile of a young girl who did something she shouldn’t have. If only he knew that the storm of his feeling was caused by a ‘girl’, whose age was over eight centuries. But I was proud of myself: one problem had already been solved. The energy, as hot water, started its way up, along the spine, up to the top of my head, and I had to use much effort to curb it and to direct it the right way, so that it would rotate all the orbits. It was so light and pure – I was just floating above the earth without any effort. Baguas were rotating in all joints at the speed of 60,000 revolutions per second. Sure, it was not easy to control the speed and the direction of rotation in all seventeen points at the same time, but with experience you stop thinking which way to rotate every joint, they start revolving by themselves when I wish it so.

If you ask a centipede how it walks, the poor creature would probably freeze and stay still until the end of its days, trying to figure out how it manages to do it. If you ask a bird how it flies, it will not understand your questions. The same with people: with age they forget their first step, the difficulties they had to overcome, the persistence they had to have and the bumps it cost them to learn to walk steadily.

But if you ask an adult, “How do you walk?” he would misunderstand it. By the way, my observations make me think that many people cannot walk, run or sleep correctly. And this costs them a lot of bodily diseases, which are often rooted in these seemingly primitive, basic things.

The matter is that it is very simple. Using modern concepts, which comprise the nature of electromagnetic fields and their interaction, the predetermination of a certain way of life and the innate disposition towards certain diseases can be explained as follows.

Right after conception the formation of the embryo’s spine starts. It takes the form of a flexible chord, something like a threadlike tube with a high concentration of blood, which indicates iron. This chord, in terms of the 20th century’s physical picture of the world, functions as a little aerial, which catches all electromagnetic waves coming in from the universe. And these fields affect the formation of the fine structure of the spine. Its nuances are determined just by the juxtaposition of the planets at the moment of the conception. This is why karma – some determination of one’s fate – enters the embryo right at the moment of its conception and immediately after. This is why the day and the time of the conception are so important for astrological forecasts.

The human backbone consists of thirty vertebrae. And there are thirty pairs of nerves in each of the vertebrae. The tiniest angles that form some time after conception send impulses to certain organs. This explains why people, who are born under the same Zodiac signs, have similar features of the character and are prone to the same diseases. The signals, of course, are very weak, but they are coming and coming – for years. They are like drops that eventually wear away the stone. The books of destiny are not in the heavens – they are in your backbones. Change the record, and you will be able to change your destiny. The key to success here is the agreement among all physical and psychological methods you might choose.

Fortunately, in my time people did not separate the physical and the psychological. Your body is the home of your soul, and they should match. That’s why all practices combine training both the body and the soul. And this was the reason why the practices were allowed to choose the path of the spirit, and not to fall into the karmic pitfalls of the low order.

Every step along the path towards perfection of those Who Are Walking the Great Way is a step towards freedom. Has freedom any boundaries? I don’t know. I don’t know it, even now. For me, the boundary of freedom runs where my knowledge and my command of practices end. It’s very simple.

First, a foetus rests in his mother’s womb, and this sets the limitations to his freedom. Then the baby stays in the cradle, which becomes the boundary of his freedom. The first step – and the toddler extends his freedom beyond the fence of his parental home. The ladder of freedom has its beginning, but nobody knows where it ends.

Yes, on that happiest and longest day of my life I was floating above the slope of the mountain. I was radiating light, I was as lustrous as a rainbow. Luckily, the sunshine was exceptionally bright that day, and nobody noticed me. Were it night, however, I would have been running the risk of being noticed.

A light wind of disturbance distracted me from daydreams and sentiments. I looked down and saw the Butler from Shi’s house. He was followed by Van. There was something in the peaceful scene that seemed wrong to me. I lowered myself to the grass at the edge of the terrace and continued watching them, trying at the same time to read the book of the recent past.

While I had been indulging in my sweet daydreams, the following incident was taking place in Shi’s house.

Once the servants had come back from the market, the Butler summoned Van.

“Was the way to the city difficult for you?” he asked.

“No, Sir,” answered Van, in due humble and respectful manner, not anticipating anything wrong.

“Was the market crowded today?”

“Yes, very crowded, Sir.”

“Do you love your young Illustrious Lord?”

“With all my heart, Sir,” replied Van, and with this her cheeks acquired the slightest tint of pink.

What else could a servant reply? This was the only possible answer for her. However, the slight flush caused the fatal decision.

“Well, I’m happy to hear that,” said the Butler. “Then you won’t mind accompanying me to the nearby village to choose flowers in honour of the young Illustrious Lord?”

The red silk ribbons on Van’s clothes were light-heartedly waving in the breeze. She was watching the path and simply following the Butler, in her habitual mincing-steps manner. On her back there was a bright green basket, it was as long as Van was tall, which she was carrying by holding onto a thick rope. In silence, the two reached a rickety suspension bridge which connected the two edges of a rock split in twain by a rapid stream of a crystal clear river flowing from up high in the mountains. The Butler waited for Van, and let her go first.

The bridge, as if alive, gave a sigh when Van stepped on it, its dry twigs responding with a crunch to every step they were making. The Butler was walking slower, and started falling behind Van. He was making deliberately heavy steps, which made the bridge shake in a baleful way. All at once Van’s straw sandal caught on a twig, and she lost her balance. At that moment, the wave of the bridge’s shaking reached the place where she was, and the bridge swayed to one side. Van fell down on the bridge, but as she feared to lose the basket, she kept holding its rope.

The shaky wave was going back in the other direction. The Butler, knowing what it meant, immediately lay down on the bridge and clutched at it, his fingers like cat’s claws. Van was trying to hold on by the twigs to avoid falling off the bridge, but she failed to find a good place to clutch by. At last she dared to let the basket go, but it was already too late – the bridge was shaking again, and, just like a horse that knows how to spill an inexperienced rider, it spilled Van, wresting its twigs and the last hope from her. Everything happened in no time at all, and the girl was so shocked that she did not even scream. The current picked up her body and carried it downstream. The only reminder of Van’s existence was a piece of red ribbon caught on some twigs of the bridge.

Some time later the bridge stilled. The Butler stood up and came to the place where Van had fallen off. For a while he watched how the stream was carrying away the basket, which already looked like leaf fallen from a tree. He could not find any sign of Van. So, he took the piece of red ribbon and headed back to the house. There, he showed the piece to his Mistress, and she understood everything.

Of course the parents could not let their son to have a relationship with a servant, but they did not have another way out, such as sending the girl away. It was the time of unrest. For security reasons, no one who served in the Northern House was allowed to leave if he knew the Lord and his children by sight. That was why it had been impossible to send Van back to her home village to her parents, and her staying in the house after the morning incident near the pond was out of the question.

That made me sad. But the trip to the low world that followed made me worried. Van’s body was the incarnation of one of the cruellest rulers of a clan that was feuding with the Shi Nan Song family who had to suffer humiliation in his subsequent incarnation as a girl. The fact that his soul might find a more ‘suitable’ body was a matter for concern, as then it would be a more serious threat for the Nan Song family. And this would be likely to happen during the lifetime of my child.

In the evening guests arrived. They were the heads of the noble families and their wives who had been invited to the Northern House of the Nan Song to bring their registries of days of conceptions and births, so that the most favourable marriage could be chosen for Shi. The astrologists were sitting in a separate room, where the heads of the families were invited in turn. After all the dates had been copied and verified, the astrologists started their calculations. They had a lot to do.

Following a long walk in the garden, where the visitors could admire the fish in the pond, and wondrous trees and flowers, the guests headed for the dining hall, where they could see a huge revolving disk which served as a table. There were, actually, three concentric disks that made up the table, the largest was the lowest, the smaller ones were placed one above the other. In the centre of the top disk, there were four big gilded statues of the Buddha and four smaller ones, thus, in total, eight; they were surrounded by plenty of flowers in special flat vases and cassolettes with incense. The candles were placed in lotus shaped gilded candle holders which reflected their light and made its structure fine, which, in turn, made the silk glitter as if alive.

The guests and the hosts could see each other. All disagreements were forgotten. They were looking forward to a peaceful dinner. Since there were a lot of guests, the table was spun at a special signal, the ring of a tiny bell, so as to please every guest. In a twinkling of an eye all three disks were covered with steaming dishes. The empty plates were noiselessly disappearing, and new and new dishes were coming as if by magic.

It was a gastronomical feast. Cashew nuts, and chicken bits of the same size dressed with sesame oil, bamboo shoots fried golden – everything was disappearing fast. Black eggs, salted ears, calamari, sea cucumbers, long seed white rice with shrimps and something else, unrecognisable; black rice with salted nuts, fried vegetables, fried pieces of eel, and lots and lots of other foods, which would take thousands of pages to describe – it might be the tastiest book, though. The sweet dishes were also a success that day, only the mini cakes could make a separate story: they were impregnated with juices of different fruits and berries, contained transparent candied fruit or green, red, orange and all other unthinkable colours. It is worth mentioning, though, that the tremendous abundance and diversity of food did not mean that every guest was expected to try everything – not at all! Each person was choosing his or her food, the one which was good for him or her, correct on this day of life according to the gastronomic horoscope.

When the treats were eaten and the dishes cleared away, there was a short pause before the Hostess announced a surprise. Everybody became still in anticipation.

From nowhere appeared dressed up girls. Each of them was holding a little golden bowl in her hand. Approaching ‘her’ guest each girl bowed to offer the bowl.

A great cheer went up from the guests.

“This is lotus fruit compote,” said the Hostess.

In the bottom of each bowl was a little oval seed, a bit bigger than a pea, but of irregular form.

“I bestow it upon you to show my appreciation. May the fine emanations from this treat instigate harmony and prosperity in each home.”

That was the concluding chord to the long day. The ladies proceeded to their rooms, and the gentlemen used that time to talk shop, to discuss military or political matters, which, however, was not essential for them.

It was announced that the astrologists’ calculations would be provided the next day, after the tea ceremony. And right after that the guests would have to leave for their homes.

Chapter Three

Tossing out a brick to get a jade gem

Shi did not like the ceremony, but it was his duty to be present there, because that moment was to determine his fate. One of those guests was to become a relative of his children. The women were looking at him, and everyone was remembering her wedding ceremony, and it was evident that some women were even trying the role of his future bride themselves, which made their cheeks flush even through the thick layer of powder, betraying them. Their attire and hairdos were incredibly sophisticated constructions, and to describe even one of them you would need as much silk as it took to make their outfit. It was a fireworks of forms, colours, and filigree details. A multitude of embroidered flowers, birds, bamboo shoots, could fit onto a tiny piece of silk, the size of a child’s palm, without making it heavier.

A special pride of each woman was her fan. It served as the extension of her hand, and the extension of her sight, and a magic item of power for each of them. None of them would exchange her fan for a diamond necklace, although their costs were comparable, because the fans were unique pieces of the finest art. Every lady was a virtuoso in using her fan, so that if she were prohibited from talking, the fan would speak on her behalf.

Never in his life had Shi seen so many exquisite granddames. His heart was beating violently, although none of them had incited a desire in him. For him it was the first time that he was confronting the feminine element, something unknowable. It was a different world, infinite and scary. He had a feeling that he was sitting alone, absolutely naked and unprotected, and he felt their sight, and hands stretching out for him, touching him, teasing him. He was doing his best to control himself and look relaxed, but the jade baton did not want to obey him and was responding to their furtive, imaginary caresses.

The incenses were smoky, helping everybody to relax and indulge in pleasant conversation, but they could not suppress the notes of jasmine, cananga, geranium, patchouli, lavender, cinnamon, rosemary, neroli, rose, which made hearts now beat faster, now flutter. These fragrances were thronging the senses, sending the present moment from their minds. The women knew what they were doing. They had been preparing for this visit thoroughly, choosing the best perfumes to harmonise with their bodies. But there were too many of them. Overlaying each other, the scents of their bodies, which combined finest attars and feminine hormones, were awaking the deepest and the most ancient layers of the consciousness. They were causing bellicose excitement in men and making their bodies inject immense amounts of adrenaline into their blood.

Modern perfumes involve a great deal of chemically synthesized components to ensure steady quality; this is why their data cannot be read, not because there was no meaningful input, but as we do not attempt to read the meaning of a clearing in a forest. They either fail utterly to stimulate these primeval centres, or stimulate them in an uncontrollable way.