The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 2 Part 4

Jueyuan,¹ managing the books in the scripture library, read everything without exception. When this old affair suddenly flashed through his mind, his back was instantly drenched in cold sweat. He called out, “Abbot! This… this is surely not Junbao’s fault!”

Reverend Wuse² also knew this history. He hurried forward, pressed his palms together in greeting, and said, “Shishuzu,³ if I may explain: this pair of iron arhats was crafted by an eminent predecessor of our monastery. The Shaolin fist technique performed by the iron arhats was likewise transmitted by this predecessor. The Shaolin fist technique Zhang Junbao learned was not truly self-taught, but was passed down by this eminent predecessor—simply not in person.”

The Meditation Hall⁴ elder demanded harshly, “Then who is this eminent predecessor who transmitted Shaolin fist technique to him?”

Wuse replied, “I do not know. But this pair of iron arhats did indeed pass through my hands.”

The elder asked harshly, “You personally gave them to him?”

Wuse said, “That is not so. But I did not make clear to him that he must not study the techniques of the iron arhats.”

The elder said, “Regardless, Zhang Junbao learned Shaolin martial arts without a master’s instruction.”

Wuse approached Abbot Tianming⁵ by several steps, bowed, and said, “I previously gave a pair of antique iron arhats from our monastery to the second young lady of Guo Jing⁶ daxia.⁷ The young lady then gave them to our junior disciple Zhang Junbao. Our monastery’s strict rule forbids learning our school’s martial arts without a master. Zhang Junbao learned a dozen or so moves of Arhat Fists from the iron arhats; he was indeed not instructed beforehand and did not know this rule. All fault lies with me. I am willing to accept heavy punishment; I beg the Abbot to show mercy. As for this lad Zhang Junbao, I beg the Abbot to pardon his offence of ignorance.”

Abbot Tianming pondered for a long while, then said, “The fault in this matter does lie with Wuse, but you did not knowingly violate the rule. We shall discuss your punishment shortly in Dharma Hall. Zhang Junbao learned martial arts without instruction, and both he and his shifu Jueyuan are at fault. They too must be punished. All shall proceed to Dharma Hall for judgement.”

The head of Dharma Hall,⁸ Reverend Wuxiang,⁹ called out, “By the Abbot’s decree, Wuse, Jueyuan, and Zhang Junbao shall proceed to Dharma Hall for judgement.”

Wuse responded, “Yes!”

Wuxiang called again, “Disciples of Dharma Hall, step forward and seize Jueyuan and Zhang Junbao!”

The eighteen disciples of Dharma Hall surged forward at once, surrounding Jueyuan and Zhang Junbao on all sides. The positions they took were spread wide, and Guo Xiang was caught within the circle as well.

The Meditation Hall elder cried out in a harsh voice, “Disciples of Arhat Hall! Why do you not join forces to advance?”

The one hundred and eight disciples of Arhat Hall thundered, “Yes!”

They then formed three more rings around the eighteen disciples of Dharma Hall.

Zhang Junbao stood helpless, trembling as he said, “Shifu, I… I…”

Jueyuan had depended upon this disciple as though father and son for ten years, their bond deep beyond measure. He feared that once Zhang Junbao was seized, even if by some fortune he escaped death, he would surely be crippled. Hearing Reverend Wuxiang call out, “Why do you not act? What are you waiting for?”—and seeing the eighteen disciples of Dharma Hall chant in unison and step forward—Jueyuan acted without thought.

He whirled in a sudden circle, swinging his two great iron buckets in a blur. A surge of powerful wind forced the monks back, and with a shake of his arms he tipped the buckets, sending all the clear water splashing out. He tilted the buckets to their sides, scooped Guo Xiang into one and Zhang Junbao into the other. He spun seven or eight times more, wielding the pair of great iron buckets with his boundless neili¹⁰ as though they were meteor hammers. Who under heaven could withstand such force of a thousand jin?¹¹ The disciples of Dharma Hall scattered in retreat.

Jueyuan strode with flying feet, carrying Zhang Junbao and Guo Xiang on his shoulder pole as he raced down the mountain. The monks shouted and gave chase, but the sound of iron chains dragging across the ground grew ever more distant. After seven or eight li,¹² not even a whisper of the chains could be heard. Shaolin Monastery’s¹³ rules were strict; since the head of Dharma Hall had ordered Zhang Junbao’s capture, the monks continued their pursuit with courage even though they knew they could not catch up.

As time passed, the differences in their qinggong¹⁴ became apparent, and those with lesser skills gradually fell behind. By nightfall, only five senior disciples remained at the head of the pursuit. Before them lay several forking paths, and they had no idea which way Jueyuan had fled. Even if they caught up now, the five of them alone could never be a match for Jueyuan and Zhang Junbao. They could only return to the monastery in dejection to report their failure.

Jueyuan carried both people on his pole and ran straight for dozens of li before finally stopping. He found himself deep within a remote mountain. Evening mists gathered on all sides, crows returned in flocks. Though Jueyuan’s neili was strong, this desperate flight had utterly exhausted him, and he lacked even the strength to lower the iron buckets from his shoulders. Zhang Junbao and Guo Xiang leapt out of the buckets and together lifted them down from his shoulders. Zhang Junbao said, “Shifu, rest a while. I will go find something to eat.”

But in this desolate mountain wilderness, where could food be found? Zhang Junbao was gone for half the day and returned with only a large handful of wild berries. The three ate haphazardly and leaned against a boulder to rest.

Guo Xiang said, “Reverend, I think all those monks at Shaolin Monastery, apart from you and Reverend Wuse, are rather peculiar.”

Jueyuan hummed softly but did not reply.

Guo Xiang continued, “That Kunlun Three Sages, He Zudao, came to Shaolin Monastery, and no one in the monastery could match him. It was entirely thanks to you and your disciple driving him away that the monastery’s reputation was preserved. Yet instead of thanking you, they glared at you with such malice and wanted to seize Brother Zhang. Such inability to distinguish right from wrong is truly baffling.”

Jueyuan sighed and said, “The old Abbot and Shixiong Wuxiang cannot truly be blamed. This monastery rule…”

As he spoke to this point, he could not draw another breath and began coughing without cease. Guo Xiang gently patted his back and said, “You are tired. Sleep for a while. We can talk slowly tomorrow.”

Jueyuan sighed again. “Yes, I am truly tired.”

Zhang Junbao gathered some dead branches and built a fire to dry Guo Xiang’s and his own clothes. The three slept beneath a great tree.

In the middle of the night, Guo Xiang was awakened by Jueyuan’s soft murmuring. He seemed to be reciting scripture. She roused herself from drowsiness and listened: “…When his force has just touched my skin, my intent has already entered his bones. Both hands supporting, one qi runs through. If the left is heavy then the left becomes empty, and the right has already gone; if the right is heavy then the right becomes empty, and the left has already gone…”

Guo Xiang’s heart stirred. What he recites is not some ‘emptiness is form, form is emptiness’ Buddhist scripture. This talk of ‘left heavy, left empty; right heavy, right empty’ sounds like a martial arts manual.

She heard him pause briefly, then continue: “…Qi is like a cartwheel, the whole body must move in harmony. Where there is no harmony, the body becomes scattered; the fault lies in the waist and legs…”

Hearing the phrase “the fault lies in the waist and legs,” Guo Xiang’s last doubts vanished. She knew he was reciting essential martial principles and thought to herself, This great monk knows nothing of martial arts, yet reads so obsessively that he treats whatever is in a book as gospel truth. That year when I first met him atop Mount Hua, I heard him say that between the lines of an ancient Sanskrit copy of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra¹⁵ someone had written the Nine Yang Manual in Chinese characters. He took it for a mere method of strengthening the body and cultivated it accordingly.

Master and disciple, without any teacher’s guidance, unwittingly reached the realm of the world’s foremost martial artists. That day, Xiaoxiangzi¹⁶ struck him with a palm, and he simply received the blow—yet Xiaoxiangzi himself was grievously injured. Such divine skill—even Father and Elder Brother might not possess it. Today, he and his disciple silently drove He Zudao away; that too was the merit of the Nine Yang Manual. What he murmurs now—could it be this scripture?

At this thought, fearing to disturb Jueyuan’s concentration, she quietly sat up and listened intently to the scripture, committing it to memory. She told herself, Whether what he says is right or wrong, let me memorise it first. Tomorrow I can ask him to explain it at leisure.

She heard him recite: “…First use the mind to direct the body; follow the opponent, not yourself. Later the body can follow the mind; from yourself, yet still following the opponent. Following yourself leads to stagnation; following the opponent leads to life. When one can follow the opponent, the hands gain precision; weigh the opponent’s force, large or small, without error of a hair; gauge the opponent’s reach, long or short, without error of a thread. Advance and retreat, everywhere fitting perfectly; the longer one practises, the more refined the skill…”

Guo Xiang listened to this point and could not help shaking her head. She thought, That is not right. Father and Mother always say that when facing an enemy, one must control others rather than be controlled. This monk has it wrong.

Yet she heard Jueyuan continue: “…If he does not move, I do not move; if he stirs even slightly, I have already moved. The force seems relaxed yet not slack, about to extend yet not extended; when the force breaks, the intent does not break…”

Guo Xiang grew more and more bewildered. All the martial arts she had learned from childhood emphasised striking first to gain the advantage—strike later and be struck. Everywhere she was taught to seize speed, to fight for initiative. The fist technique principles Jueyuan now spoke of claimed that “following yourself leads to stagnation, following the opponent leads to life”—this was utterly opposed to everything she had ever learned. She thought, When two people fight for their lives, if I yield myself to follow my opponent, if my enemy wants me east I go east, wants me west I go west—am I not simply waiting to be struck?

She heard Jueyuan recite further: “…When yin reaches its utmost flourishing, it begins to wane; lesser yang is born in secret. Yin gradually wanes and yang gradually flourishes; yin and yang complement each other, generating and sustaining one another. Lesser yang is born from elder yin; lesser yin is born from elder yang. All things must not reach their extreme; at the extreme comes change. From heavy turns light, from light turns heavy…”

Guo Xiang suddenly had an insight. When I strike out with one fist, by the end my fist-force is exhausted; I cannot add even a fraction more. Yet according to what Reverend Jueyuan says, it seems that after fist-force is exhausted, it can somehow be born again, and the more it is born the stronger it becomes. How strange. Could his neili be so formidable precisely because of this principle?

Just as she hesitated, the words Jueyuan spoke slipped past her, heard but not registered. In the moonlight, she glimpsed Zhang Junbao sitting cross-legged, also listening intently. She thought, Whether what he says is right or wrong, let me memorise it first. This great monk’s palm strike wounded Xiaoxiangzi, and he repelled He Zudao—I witnessed it with my own eyes. The martial principles he speaks must contain profound truth.

And so she continued to memorise attentively.

Originally, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra had circulated in the Tianzhu Kingdom.¹⁷ At that time, the kingdom did not know the art of papermaking, so the sutra was inscribed with a sharp needle upon palm leaves. Patriarch Bodhidharma brought the palm-leaf scripture from the Tianzhu Kingdom to the Central Plains during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang.¹⁸ It was transmitted to Shaolin Monastery. Palm leaves are fragile and difficult to store or read, so Shaolin monks transcribed the sutra onto white paper and bound it into a volume.

When copying the Sanskrit, they left wide spaces between the lines. At some unknown time, a profound monk had written another text in Chinese characters between the lines—the Nine Yang Manual, a treatise on the highest martial cultivation. For over a thousand years, Shaolin monks had read only the Chinese translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra; no one had read the original Sanskrit. Though this Nine Yang Manual had lain in the scripture library for ages, not a single sentence or page had ever been perused.

Jueyuan was by nature pedantic; he read everything, every scripture without exception. When he encountered this text, he recited it without question, and unwittingly cultivated profound neigong¹⁹. The exalted monk who composed the Nine Yang Manual had been a Daoist before embracing Buddhism, thoroughly versed in the Daoist Canon. The martial scripture he wrote balanced both hard and soft, yin and yang mutually sustaining, adapting to circumstance, responding after the opponent—quite different from the traditionally yang-dominant martial arts of Shaolin, and equally distinct from the purely yin-focused Nine Yin Manual.²⁰

This monk of old, having realised this profound martial principle, dared not discuss or investigate it with others within Shaolin Monastery, so he simply jotted it down between the lines of a manuscript. Jueyuan’s mastery of this art was, first, a consequence of his nature, and second, could only be attributed to fortunate circumstance.

Jueyuan, having greatly exhausted his true energy, now recited the text in the depths of night. Inevitably his spirit flagged, and his recitation became somewhat confused and jumbled. Fortunately, Guo Xiang was clever by nature and memorised attentively, managing to retain two or three parts out of ten.

Footnotes

1. 觉远 – Juéyuǎn. His name meaning “Awakened Distance” or “Far-reaching Enlightenment.” See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 无色 – Wúsè. His name meaning “Formless” or “Colourless.” See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 师叔祖 – shīshūzǔ. Literally teacher-uncle-ancestor. A disciple of one’s great-grandmaster who is two generations senior to one’s shifu. ↩

4. 心禅堂 – Xīnchán Táng. Literally Heart-Meditation Hall. The most senior council of Shaolin Monastery, consisting of venerable elders who had achieved the highest levels of Buddhist cultivation and martial attainment. ↩

5. 天鸣 – Tiānmíng. His name meaning “Heavenly Sound” or “Sky’s Cry.” The abbot of Shaolin Monastery. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning Guo Serenity. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 大侠 – dàxiá. Literally great hero. A title bestowed upon extraordinary martial artists of great moral integrity and martial prowess. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 达摩堂 – Dámó Táng. Literally Bodhidharma Hall. Named after Bodhidharma, the legendary founder of Chan Buddhism and Shaolin martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 无相 – Wúxiàng. His name meaning “Without Appearance” or “Without Form.” The First Seat of the Bodhidharma Hall. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 内力 – nèilì. Inner strength. The kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 斤 – jīn. A traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams or 1.1 pounds. ↩

12. 里 – lǐ. A traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or one-third of a mile. ↩

13. 少林寺 – Shàolín Sì. Famous Buddhist monastery, birthplace of Chan Buddhism and Shaolin martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. Movement techniques allowing practitioners to move with extraordinary speed and agility. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 楞伽经 – Lèngqié Jīng. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, an important Mahayana Buddhist scripture particularly significant to Chan Buddhism. Said to have been brought to China by Bodhidharma himself. See Wikipedia. ↩

16. 潇湘子 – Xiāoxiāngzǐ. A martial artist known for his corpse-like appearance. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 天竺 – Tiānzhú. The ancient Chinese name for ancient India. See Wikipedia. ↩

18. 梁武帝 – Liáng Wǔdì. Emperor Wu of Liang (464–549 CE), a devout Buddhist who received Bodhidharma. See Wikipedia. ↩

19. 内功 – nèigōng. Literally internal skill. The skill used to increase one’s neili through cultivation of qi within the body. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 九阴真经 – Jiǔyīn Zhēnjīng. Literally Nine Yin True Scripture. A legendary internal cultivation manual emphasising yin energy and powerful martial techniques. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩