“(…He bowed to me, and I also bowed to Him. Then, Master’s yoga meditation image and Lieh Tzu overlapped transparently and merged into one, showing Lieh Tzu was one of Master’s past lives.…)”
In our recent episodes we have discovered that, Master Lao Tzu (vegan), Master Chuang Tzu (vegan), Master Zhang Daoling (vegan), and Taoist Master Guiguzi (breatharian) were past incarnations of Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan). Another of Her incarnations related to Taoism is that of Master Lieh Tzu.
Lieh Tzu lived from 450 to 375BC. He was also known as Lieh Yu-Kou and was born in the Spring and Autumn Period in the State of Zheng, near today's Zhengzhou, Henan Province. He was the author of the Taoist book “Lieh Tzu” which ranks with “Lao Tzu” and “Chuang Tzu” as one of the most eloquent and influential expositions of Taoist philosophy.
Lieh Tzu was a great spiritual practitioner, Taoist scholar, philosopher, writer, and educator. He lived in seclusion in Zheng State for forty years, did not seek fame and wealth, emptied His mind and practiced the Tao. He was venerated as the Perfected Man of Simplicity and Emptiness. He had a large number of disciples and founded the School of Highly Valuing Emptiness. His teachings profoundly influenced the philosophy, literature, health preservation, music, and religion of later generations.
One of our association members shared her inner vision that revealed Supreme Master Ching Hai’s past life as Lieh Tzu.
“(One day, when I was sitting in the Universe, very troubled and thought, ‘Who in the Universe can help solve this problem?’ At this time, an ancient man appeared and said to me, ‘My child, don’t worry, I will help you.’ For a while, I didn’t know who He was. He said, ‘I am Lieh Tzu – Lie Yukou.’
I didn’t know how Lieh Tzu was related to me and I kept reciting the Holy Names silently to test if it was true. He said, ‘You used to be my disciple. You wrote books for me and served me well. In this life, I have come to you again.’ Lieh Tzu wore civilian clothes, white inside, and blue outside, and a bandana on His head. His appearance looked like He was in his later years. He bowed to me, and I also bowed to Him. Then, Master’s yoga meditation image and Lieh Tzu overlapped transparently and merged into one, showing Lieh Tzu was one of Master’s past lives.
I didn’t know much about Lieh Tzu. He sat down, lifted His bare foot, and placed it on my forehead. I couldn’t understand the meaning of this. But at this time, I seemed to go back in time. I saw there was a disciple, still a boy then, jumping around Lieh Tzu. Then, in an instant, this disciple became an adult and walked towards me. I knew then that this was me in the past life. I became one with him and regained the power and abilities that I had in that era.
I appeared as an ancient disciple and saluted Master Lieh Tzu, who was still overlapping the current appearance of Supreme Master Ching Hai, with a red spot painted on the center of Master’s forehead. Lieh Tzu said, ‘I will definitely help you. When the time comes, it shall definitely be solved. Why don’t you study my theory now, it might be helpful to you.’ I said, ‘OK.’
I asked Master, ‘Why did Master suddenly reveal the identity of Lieh Tzu?’ Master said, ‘When the time comes, even if you want to hide your identity, you can’t hide it. Isn’t it the same for you? You don’t even know how many past identities you had. Because we all have countless past lives, some famous and some not famous, peddlers and errand boys may all be our identities. “A great hermit may hide himself and live humbly in the busy town.” This is not just about an ordinary person; even the Holy Spirit and the Mighty One will also use this method to conceal Himself from the crowd.’)”
To some, Lieh Tzu seems to be only an imaginary figure who is written about in books. This may be why people find it hard to believe that he could “fly fifteen days at a time,” as mentioned in the book of Chuang Tzu. “Lieh Tzu rides the wind, floating elegantly, and came back after ten days and five more.”
On September 17, 1995, Supreme Master Ching Hai read the following story of Lieh Tzu who, after nine years of practicing Tao with His Master, Mr. Lao Shang, reached the state of not differentiating Himself from other beings, and was able to follow the wind, traveling everywhere, like a falling leaf in autumn.
“Lie Tzu said after he followed his Master for nine years, when he saw others make mistakes, he didn’t know if they made the mistakes or if he himself did. It means that he could carry karma for others. When they did wrong, it was the same as him doing wrong. This is what he meant. That was why he could interchange with everybody. He couldn’t discriminate. He couldn’t say the mistake that person made was not related to him, because he was one with him.
At that time, he couldn’t differentiate inside from outside. His five senses became one, coexisting and working in concert. His heart seemed to suddenly stop and calm down. His body was liberated. His bones and flesh seemed to have melted. He didn’t know what his body depended on for existence. He didn’t feel that his feet were standing on the ground. So he followed the wind, traveling everywhere like a falling leaf in autumn. He did not know if it was the wind carrying him, or if it was him carrying the wind.”
Our association member’s recount of her inner spiritual experience sheds more light on this.
“(Lieh Tzu–Chongxu Zhenren appeared again. This time He wore a crown on His head and held a jade tablet in His hand. He stepped forward with a smile to bow to me, and I also bowed quickly. He took me to a fairy mountain with cliffs on all edges. At the end there was a hut, built on the edge of a cliff like Mount Huangshan.
He sat down between the cliffs, a guqin [seven-stringed Chinese musical instrument] magically appeared in front of Him, and He started to play. He said, ‘Disciple! Let me play a piece for you. This is the piece that we used to play together most often.’ As I sat down, a guqin appeared in front of me as well. And I played a duo with Lieh Tzu, the sound of the guqin was clanging.
When we played together, there were many white cranes around us. Their movements were gentle and soft, fluttering, jumping, or spinning, in harmony with the sound of our guqin. This is a picture of ‘Crane Dancing on the Qin’... This scene continued for a while, and the atmosphere was very lofty and peaceful.
Then two of us, Master and disciple, put down the guqin in front of us, soared into the sky together, and flew against the wind. We whirled and floated among waterfalls and valleys, just like the ancient times. The sound of the waterfall was roaring majestically, and the rush of negative ions were refreshing... Years ago, I had a dream of flying over a waterfall several times, and it turned out to be this place! That was a memory of my past life. And now, I’m back.
In the first chapter of ‘Zhuang Tzu,’ ‘Xiaoyaoyou,’ it is recorded that Lieh Tzu could ‘fly against the wind,’ this was real. We were now flying against the wind just like before, with the wind stirring inside our clothes, the state of ‘can not tell whether the wind is riding me, or I am riding the wind.’ Both Master and disciple laughed happily, and the mountain wind whistled in our ears...
I flew to the woods, stepped lightly on the top of a tree, and bounced. Master Lieh Tzu also landed on the top of a tree, bent it with His hand, and bounced up. The legendary martial arts of Qing-gong is true. It turned out that Lieh Tzu and His disciples all had this kind of Qing-gong technique.
Then we sat down to meditate in the air above the waterfall. At this time, hundreds of birds came all kinds of birds circled around us, in particular, the white cranes and red phoenixes. Could it be that phoenixes really existed in ancient times? Because this was the Warring States Period. This is the so-called ‘You Feng Lai Yi [A phoenix comes with grace to rest]’...
These hundred birds paid respect to us and surrounded us, chirping and singing. Some birds sang long and clear, like the chirping of divine eagles described in the novel of ‘The Legend of Condor Heroes.’ Then all the birds ran under our seats, like a circular net bed, supporting us, bouncing Master and disciple up and down, again and again; it was fun! Some birds took a lot of flowers and spread them on this net as an offering to us. It turns out that Master Lieh Tzu and I lived such a fairytale-like life in the past. The legends are all real!)”
