21st May 2024: Birthday of Lü Dongbin
According to the Daoist tradition, the Birthday of Founding Ancestor Lü Chunyang (呂純陽祖師聖誕 Lü Chunyang Zushi Shengdan) is observed on the 14th day of the 4th Chinese lunar month which falls on May 21st this year. Below you find described the circumstances of his birth:
初，母就蓐時，異香滿室，天樂浮空。一白鶴自天而下，飛入帳中不見。生而金形木質鶴頂龜背，鳳眼朝天，雙眉入鬢。少聰明，日記萬言，矢口成文。身長八尺二寸，狀類張子房，二十不娶。始在襁褓，馬祖見曰：此兒骨相不凡，自是風塵物外。他時遇廬則居，見鍾則扣。留心記取。後遊廬山遇火龍真人，傳天遁劍法。唐會昌中兩舉進士不第。時年六十四歲，遊長安酒肆，見一羽士青巾白袍，偶書絕句於壁曰:坐臥常攜酒一壺，不教雙眼識皇都。乾坤許大無名姓，疏散人間一丈夫。洞賓訝其狀貌奇古，詩意飄逸，因揖問姓氏。羽士曰：吾雲房先生也，居在終 南鶴嶺。子能從遊乎？
At the birth [of Lü Dongbin], as his mother lay on the straw mat, a strange fragrance filled the room and heavenly music floated in space. A white crane descended from the heavens, flew into the bed canopy and disappeared. When he was born, he [embodied] the shape of metal and the quality of wood, the head of a crane and the back of a turtle, with phoenix eyes [that gazed] towards the heavens and two eyebrows that reached his temples. When he was young, he was [highly] intelligent. Each day, he was able to memorize ten thousand words and whatever darted forth from his mouth became literature. His body grew to be eight Chinese feet and two inches tall and he resembled Zhang Zifang. At the age of twenty, he had still not taken a wife. [Long before this,] while he was still in his swaddling clothes, the Founding Ancestor Ma saw him and said: This child’s bone structure and appearance are unlike that of a common person; he will certainly be a free wanderer beyond the mundane world. In the future, if he encounters a hut, he should dwell there; if he encounters a bell, he should ring it.
Be sure to remember these two statements.
(source: The Arts of Daoism with many endnotes)
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