The Path to Immortality by Han Xiangzi

A long time ago, a woman named Bright-Bright was married to a man named Stiff Neck who loved her dearly. Sadly she was not happy in her situation because she was very smart and deserved to marry someone better than Stiff Neck. In her sadness she committed suicide and Stiff Neck followed her because of his love. The two of them were reborn as a crane and deer. Bright-Bright became the crane, a pure being, so that she would be capable of working towards immortality, eventually helping the deer to also reach immortality. Two immortals knew of this plan and made it so Bright-Bright would be reborn as Han Xiangzi, saving many others and bringing them to immortality in his lifetime. Once he was reborn he still needed to become an immortal so that he could help others. This path was a difficult one and took many steps. The two immortals he previously had met planed to train him and gave him tests so that he could reach immortality.

As a child, Xiangzi’s parents new there was more to his life because he would not speak and cried frequently. His mother had an immortal, disguised as a daoist, sing to him. The immortal told Xiangzi not to worry because his time would come to become an immortal and he must just wait. By the age of fourteen, Xiangzi started speaking again and his uncle, who he lived with after his parent’s deaths, thought it was necessary for him to begin schooling. Xiangzi’s uncle found the same two immortals from earlier in our story, Master Lu and Master Zhong to instruct Xiangzi in government and politics. When the two immortals finally met with Xiangzi they asked him if he would prefer to study government and politics or if he would want to study the daoist path to immortality. He chooses to work towards immortality and become a celestial immortal.

Celestial immortals are those whose spirit and form are equally marvelous, who exist in harmonious perfection with the Dao, walk under sun and moon without throwing a shadow, go through metal and rock without hindrance, have many transformations, and are hard to grasp, whether hidden or manifest; they appear sometimes as old, sometimes as young…Those who refine the perfectly unified pneuma of Former Heaven, cultivate the great drug of the golden elixir, make the mercury dragon rise and the lead tiger descend, and congeal the gain-sized pearl- they are the highest-ranked divine and celestial immortals. (p 57)