Zhao Xiangzi with a hundred thousand people went on a fire hunt in the Middle Mountains. Using tall grass, they set fire to the forest, and the flames engulfed it for hundreds of li. And then a man came out of the stone cliff, rising and falling along with the smoke and ash. Everyone said it was the soul of a dead man. Having walked through the fire as if it were not there, the man came out slowly.
Zhao Xiangzi was surprised, held him back and examined him. The figure, the color, the seven holes in the head - a man; by breathing and voice - a person. And Zhao Xiangzi asked:
—What secret do you use to live in stone? What secret do you use to get through fire?
-What do you call a stone? What do you call fire? - he asked him.
- Where you recently came from is a stone; what I recently went through is fire.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
The Wei king the Beautiful heard about this and asked Zixia, his court sage:
-What kind of person was this?
“I, Shan, heard from the Teacher that a person who has achieved harmony is like other things in everything.” Nothing can hurt him or stop him. He can do everything: pass through metal and stone, and walk on water or flame.
- Why don’t you do this? - asked King the Beautiful.
- I, Shan, am not yet able to open my heart and cleanse it of knowledge. Although I try to talk about it when I have free time.
- Why doesn’t the teacher do this?
“The teacher is capable of this,” answered Zixia, “but he is also capable of not doing this.”
Tsar the Beautiful liked the answer very much.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru