In the first year of Huichang of the Tang Dynasty. Li Shiji, a Chinese prime minister, was the observer of eastern Zhejiang. A merchant encountered a storm at sea, and the ship drifted with the wind, not knowing where it would be blown to.
After a month or so, the ship docked at the foot of a big mountain. He saw that the mountain was filled with rare clouds and flowers, and the white cranes and strange trees were unlike anything you could see on earth. At that moment, someone at the edge of the mountain greeted him and asked, “How did you get here?” The merchant told the mountain man one by one how the boat had met the storm. The mountain man told the merchant to moor his boat and go ashore, adding, “You must see the Heavenly Master.” So the merchant was led to what appeared to be a large temple. Through a passage, into the view, a Taoist priest sitting in the hall, the Taoist beard and eyebrows are white. Next to him stood dozens of guards. The Taoist priest said to the merchant, “You are a Chinese, you are here because you have a Destiny, this is Mount Penglai. Now that you are here, would you like to take a look around?”
So the Taoist priest sent his guards to guide the merchant around the palace. There were jade platforms and celestial trees, and the place was glorious. There were dozens of courtyards inside, each with a name. When they came to a courtyard, the door was locked tightly, so the merchant looked in through a gap. There was a mattress in the seat, and incense was burning under the steps. The merchant asked what this place was. He replied, “This is the White Heavenly Palace. Bai Le Tian is now in the future in China.” The merchant wrote this down silently and said goodbye and returned.
After ten days or so, the merchant returned to the coast of Vietnam and told Observer Li all that he had seen. The merchant returned to the coast of Yuezhong and told Li what he had seen, which he recorded and reported to Bai Juyi (Bai Lotian). Before, Bai only practiced Buddhism, but after reading what Li reported, he composed two poems to remember the incident and to reply to Li Shiji, the observer of eastern Zhejiang. The poem goes like this: “Recently, someone returned from the sea, and deep in the sea and mountains, I saw a tower. There is a room in the niche of the immortals, and they all say that they are waiting for Lotte to come.” And he also said, “I have studied the empty door but not the immortal, and I am afraid that this word of yours is a false propaganda. The sea and the mountains are not my place of return, but I should return to the vast rate of heaven.”
Although he vowed to practice Buddhism only and not to study immortality, he had no love for the earthly world and was willing to abandon his chariot and coronet, which is different from those who are ignorant.
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