白马山
White Horse Mountain #1 [excerpt 1]
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Legend has it that after the True Warrior Ancestral Founding Master [真武] left his home and family, he roamed in the four places with the wish to find a treasured ground, ideal for cultivation. One day, when the road traversed the Yellow Dragon Beach, he saw in the distance the topography and features of the White Horse Mountain; standing upright and straight, tall and erect entering into the clouds, with puffs of white clouds resembling Heavenly Horses travelling in mid-air, conjuring up people’s awe and stirring up the thought in him to ascend White Horse Mountain to cultivate.
The Ancestral Founding Elder led his white horse along the mountain path and ascended. Since the mountain path was hard to travel, the stones which the White horse traversed on the path left behind a string of horse shoe imprints. Nowadays they are called Horse Trodden Stones by the people. When the Ancestral Founding Elder entered the gully of the Heavenly Gate arriving in front of the Heavenly Gate, for once he was not cautious, and one square-shaped giant rock was trodden down the mountain; to be placed horizontally at the Heavenly Gate gully’s entrance.
Originally these rock pillars pressed down a millennium old turtle demon (people call it the Obstructing the Gate Stone). When the turtle demon saw with its own eyes that the giant boulder on its body had been stomped down by people, it soon afterwards wished to act up and cause mischief. The Ancestral Founding Elder, upon seeing this, stepped on it with one foot[whilst saying:
我要上山修道，你就在此把守进山天门吧！
I want to ascend this mountain to cultivate the Dao,
and you stay right here to stand guard of the Heavenly Gate to enter the mountain!
In the blink of an eye, the turtle then transformed into a giant boulder, extending its neck, lying on its stomach on the Little Heavenly Gate entrance in order to stand guard of the Heavenly Gate’s door. (This scenery is called Wild Beast Guardian of the Gate.)
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Post-Scriptum:
The full legend will appear in the appendix of Purple Cloud Press’ forthcoming publication of 《The 49 Barriers of Cultivating the Dao》 by Xing De, a manual for refining one’s Inner Nature based on Liu Yi Ming’s 50 Barriers.
Pictures from www.fiveimmortals.com
