Chapter 38 What is Cultivation?
Walking into the Spirit Ruins Paradise, only after taking around a hundred steps did the resonating scripture in Ye Fan’s heart stop. Tens of bluestone steps were left behind him; the area of the steps was obviously not ordinary. But Ye Fan didn’t stop.
In front of him was a mountain peak with a powerful Spiritual Qi. Further, a thousand meter long waterfall crashed down from above. White mists blew into the air, appearing just like a river of stars as the waterfall rumbled, magnificent and spectacular.
“It really is worthy of the name Blessed Paradise. This scenery is amazing, like a holy land beyond the world.”
A winding pebble stone track meandered past the waterfall into the depths of the beautiful immortal mountain. Tall ancient trees littered the track, their branches twisting vigorously. Pavilion rooms covered and were covered by the lush vegetation, an extremely natural and harmonious look.
On the two sides of the ancient track, manmade medicinal fields grew various herbs. Some they knew, such as ginger as thick as an arm, or nine-leafed lingzhi mushrooms. Some they didn’t know the name of, but they sparkled and glistened with dots of light, and an overflowing medicinal fragrance refreshed the mind.
Many people on the way stopped to respectfully greet the seniors. They were also very amicable towards Weiwei. As the top talent of this generation, her position in the Spirit Ruin Paradise was very well known.
Weiwei responded in kind to each of the greetings. She didn’t possess any kind of arrogance in her dealings. Within the holy land, she appeared like an elegant immortal fairy. In the end, she disappeared like a cloud, blowing off deeper into the picturesque Paradise.
Ye Fan and Pang Bo were brought to a short hill on which a thatched cottage with only a couple of rooms had been built. A couple bamboo forests and a medicinal field were around the cottage, along with some old trees.
Although this was not amazing like the palaces and it appeared very simple, it was superior in that it appeared more tranquil and natural. It was as peaceful as a holy land, causing people’s spirits to be reborn. This place seemed far from the mundane world, as if all would be cleansed of mortal vexations.
“You can live here.” The seniors gave them a couple rules and instructions before leaving. There was also another one of their cla.s.smates that had been brought to the Spirit Ruins Paradise, but he wasn’t going to live with Ye Fan and Pang Bo. Instead, he was sent somewhere else.
Around noon, a twelve or thirteen-year-old youth brought food for them to eat. The meal was very simple and dull: lotus roots, King Solomon’s Seal, Wolfiporia Extensa, Gastrodia Elata; they were all medicinal herbs.
“Is this…even edible?” There’s not even any meat. We’ve only eaten wild fruits and drunk spring water these past few days and now they’re continuing to feed us this kind of food. Our mouths might become so dull that pure water starts coming out of it instead of saliva.”
Although the food lacked any oil, Ye Fan and Pang Bo finished it all. They didn’t even leave the herbal leaves behind.
“Can we get some roast chicken?”
Seeing the two of them act this way, the youngster who sent them food was dumbstruck. “N…no, there’s no meat offered inside the Paradise. If you two sirs are still hungry, I can send some more food to you.”
“How can there be no meat? I saw quite a few cranes and white deer outside. And there must be some other random birds and animals around. Can’t you just take a couple and cook them? I think those few cranes look like they’re fat enough.”
The youngster who sent them seemed to have seen a ghost. He immediately escaped without a trace, apparently afraid he couldn’t run away fast enough.
“Looks like entering into an immortal sect to cultivate is not worth celebrating over. These days pa.s.s in a far too poor and simple manner. We can’t even get any meat to eat. How will we survive in the future?” Pang Bo incessantly lamented.
Ye Fan was also very hungry. He really wanted to cook a couple chickens, take a couple of chicken wings, and gorge himself with a bottle of fine wine.
More than ten days pa.s.sed, but those seniors didn’t appear again. The youngster who brought them food gradually became more familiar with Pang Bo and Ye Fan. Ye Fan and Pang Bo also gradually became accustomed to this ancient Chinese lifestyle.
The youngster was also very envious of them. Disciples that just entered the sect would not be able to live on their own like the two of them. They had to successfully cultivate before they could set up their own immortal cave.
“A thatched cottage with just five rooms counts as an immortal cave?”
Ye Fan and Pang Bo were now wearing clothes sent to them, and other than their short hair, they looked like just like the other disciples of the Spirit Ruins Paradise.
“You can’t say it like that. This whole mountain’s area is considered as yours. If you guys had the ability, you naturally could create your own immortal cave.”
“If the whole mountain is ours, then killing a deer or cooking a couple cranes shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Hearing them say such things, the youngster didn’t dare to reply. These two people were really too brazen. Their thinking was completely different from ordinary people.
“Don’t worry, we won’t act stupidly. How about you tell us just what this so-called cultivation is?”
Ye Fan and Pang Bo were both very interested in this question. Right now, they didn’t understand anything about the path of cultivation. They had just barely heard a couple people mention the ‘Sea of Bitterness,’ ‘Divine Bridge,’ and ‘Paramita.’ But they didn’t understand any of the meaning of their words.
The youngster shook his head, unable to say anything. He had only entered into the Spirit Ruins Palace very recently, so hadn’t truly started walking the path of immortality.
“Looks like you guys are getting impatient.” At this moment, an old man appeared in front of their small hill. His sleeves fluttered, and his feet didn’t touch the ground as he seemed to ride the wind over to their thatched cottage. Greeting the youngster with a nod, he said, “You can go now.”
“You are…” Ye Fan and Pang Bo didn’t recognize this ruddy complexioned old man with long white hair. He seemed like a divine Immortal from outside this world.
“I am an Elder of the Spirit Ruins Paradise, Wu Qingfeng. All disciples are taught by me for their first three years.”
“Senior Elder Wu.”
“There’s no need to be so formal.”
“Elder, can you first improve our meals? We still aren’t immortals; if we continue like this we really might ascend to heaven and die. These foods are too dull. Even when we see a gra.s.shopper we’ll feel our hunger stir,” Pang Bo repeatedly whined.
Wu Qingfeng solemnly said, “The mortal world is filled with too much avarice. When one enters a Blessed Paradise, the first thing that must be done is to cut off those extraneous desires and cleanse the body through meditation. If you can’t even suppress your appet.i.te, then in the future, you will have no way to resist the enticements on your path to immortality.”
Pang Bo and Ye Fan didn’t know what to say in response to this. Ye Fan, who hadn’t even formally entered into the Paradise, felt even more uncomfortable bringing up requests.
Both Ye Fan and Pang Bo had many questions, but Ye Fan was too embarra.s.sed to ask them. But Pang Bo was already a disciple of the Spirit Ruins Palace, so he had no misgivings. He politely asked senior Wu Qingfeng to sit with them on some tree stumps before asking him all sorts of questions. Towards this so-called cultivation, they didn’t know anything at all.
“When you look up at the sky, do you think it is pure?”
“There are no clouds anywhere and blue sky almost looks as if it has been washed; naturally it is very pure.” Ye Fan didn’t know why he would ask such a question, but when the senior looked over at him, he still gave a response.
“Wrong, there is endless dust.” Wu Qingfeng opened his own palm, saying, “Even a square centimeter on my finger is filled with endless dust.”
“What…do you mean?” Pang Bo asked in confusion.
Senior Wu Qingfeng spoke very tranquilly, as if he were an old immortal. “What do you think the endless dust is?”
“What else could it be? It’s naturally just dust.”
“It is dust, but at the same time, it isn’t,” the old man calmly said.
“I understand that it is dust. But what do you mean it isn’t dust?” Pang Bo asked.
“It’s a world, a vast world,” Wu Qingfeng light said. His words were very natural and tranquil.
“It’s a vast world…are you joking?” Pang Bo was completely bewildered.
“You will understand in the future. A speck of dust, a blade of gra.s.s, a single tree, they are all worlds of their own.”
“You…can you speak a bit more frankly. I feel like I’m listening to some sort of obscure scripture. Although the words are simple and easy to understand, they contain a deep and profound meaning that I don’t understand at all.”
Wu Qingfeng was sitting there with a faint smile. “Let’s not talk about that today. What I wanted to say was that heaven and earth are filled with endless dust, and that each speck of dust is its own world. In the same way, our bodies also don’t seem to hold much, but they contain endless ‘gates,’ just as countless as the dust in heaven and earth. Opening these gates and finding the ‘true self,’ that is cultivation.”
Seeing the two of them so amazed, senior Wu Qingfeng was completely undisturbed. “Now do you understand what cultivation is?”
“I think…I understand a bit now.”
“Good. In the future, slowly ponder over it. Now I will tell you about the Sea of Bitterness. There are countless methods in this world, but none open up the path of immortality.”
“Senior, this time you have to speak a bit more in detail.” Although Ye Fan and Pang Bo had yet to truly start their cultivation journey, they both understood that the foundations were the most important.
“The countless creatures of this world all age over time. Some might survive eternally, immortal throughout all time. But some might be born in the morning and die in the evening, so much so that they die in just a twinkling of an eye. “
“Elder, your words are too mysterious. Just what are you trying to tell us?”
The old man didn’t blame them for interrupting him. Pointing at the tree stump of an ancient tree, he said, “Can you know how many years this tree has lived for?”
“Of course, since it’s been chopped already, we can easily tell by counting the growth rings.
“Correct. Time is pitiless. All living things will be marked by the pa.s.sing of time. Trees have growth rings, while we humans also have a Wheel of Life.”
“Humans also have such a thing?” Ye Fan and Pang Bo felt this was a bit ridiculous.
“The cultivation I speak of all starts with the body’s Wheel of Life…”
Translator notes:
I translated the herbs into their scientific names since most of them have no official English names. 藕片 (ou pian, should be translated as lotus roots )、黄精 (huang jing, literally yellow essence, King Solomon’s Seal, a mushroom)、茯苓 (fu ling, could have been ‘translated’ as fuling since it is kind of well known as such among English pract.i.tioners of Chinese medicine, it is a fungus)、天麻 (tian ma, used to cure dizziness). Personally, I prefer to keep as little as pinyin as possible unless there’s no alternative. Some people may prefer them in pinyin since they also don’t know the English term and it might sound ‘cooler’ in such a way, but in this case, Chinese readers would not have read it and gone, oh, these are cool-sounding herbs that I know nothing about since I only have a phonetic. Probably there would be a few Chinese readers who also had to look up the terms to find the names of these herbs, although they are much more well known.
An immortal cave is an actual term in Chinese, and it can also refer toany place an immortal lives, it’s just that it’s normally a cave.
Qingfeng (清风) literally means ‘fresh breeze,’ or can figuratively mean ‘pure and honest.’