Liu Gen was a native of Chang’an, a capital city, and was well versed in the “Five Classics” of poetry, calligraphy, ritual, Yi, and Spring and Autumn when he was young. In the second year of Suihe, Emperor Xiaoyu of Han Dynasty, Liu Gen was nominated as a filial integrity officer and was appointed as a governor. Later, Liu Gen resigned from his official position and went into the mountains to study Taoism. He lived in a stone cave in the Song Mountain in Henan Province, which was on a precipitous cliff, thousands of feet high. Liu Gen looked like a man of 14 or 15 years old, with deep eyes and a yellow beard three or four inches long.
Sometimes he sat opposite people, and suddenly became wearing a black robe wearing a high hat attire, and did not see him change clothes. According to Heng, his ancestor was the same age as Liu Gen. When Wang Mang was in the Western Han Dynasty, he sent people to invite Liu Gen many times, but Liu Gen refused to go. The governor sent his adjutant Wang Zhen to greet Liu Gen, but Liu Gen did not reply. Then the governor sent a public cao surnamed Zhao to pay his respects to Liu Gen, who thanked the governor and said nothing more.
Later on, one of the Taishou, Zhang, thought Liu Gen was a demon and sent someone to summon Liu Gen with the intention of killing him. The people in the Taishou’s residence discouraged it, but Taishou Zhang did not listen. So some officials secretly told Liu Gen to hide, but Liu Gen did not listen. The people sent by Taishou Zhang found Liu Gen and asked him to come to the Taishou’s residence. Liu Gen asked, “What does Taishou Zhang want to see me for? It seems I have to go. If I don’t go, I’m afraid I’ll implicate you all, and the sheriff will say you don’t dare to come and ask me to see him.”
Liu Gen arrived at the palace that day, when the palace was full of guests, and Zhang sent more than fifty people with swords, sticks and ropes to stand in the hall, but Liu Gen did not care at all. Zhang Taishou asked Liu Gen in a stern voice, “Do you have any Daoist magic?” Liu Gen said, “Yes, I do.” The sheriff asked, “Can you summon the ghost?” Liu Gen said he could summon them. The sheriff said, “Since you can, catch one for me, otherwise, I will kill you!”
Liu Gen said, “It’s a small thing to summon a ghost.” When he said that he had borrowed a pen and ink stone and a desk to read official documents, he heard a clanging sound of copper and iron in the hall, which reached outside. Liu Gen and loud whistling, the sound is very clear, listening to people are very frightened, the guests are listening to dare not make a sound. In a moment, I saw the south wall of the hall suddenly cracked open several feet, pouring in 400 to 500 soldiers wearing armor and helmets. Liu Gen summoned another forty to fifty soldiers in red, armed with swords, pushing a cart, from the broken wall into the hall, and then the wall was restored to its original state.
Liu Gen ordered the ghosts in the car to get off, the red-clad soldiers opened the car’s cloth curtain. See a pair of old men’s wives under the curtain, all tied up, pushed by the red-clad soldiers in front of the hall. Zhang Shou fixed his eyes to look closely, did not expect to be his dead Parents! At this point, Zhang Shou was frightened and afraid, crying bitterly, not knowing what to do. His parents reprimanded: “When we were alive, your salary was small and you did not provide for us well. Now that we are dead, why do you have to anger the gods and make us get caught here? What face do you have as a son to live in this world, to suffer such humiliation?
Zhang Taishou quickly went down the court steps and kowtowed to Liu Gen, confessing his guilt and suffering death, and only asked for pardon for his parents. Then Liu Gen ordered the 500 soldiers to take the two old men out and put them back into the underworld, pulling the two old men out through the south wall, and after the cart passed, the wall returned to its original state. I don’t know where the car went, and Liu Gen disappeared. Zhang Taishou was still in a trance, almost going crazy, his wife immediately fainted at that Time, and only after a long time came back to Life. She said, “I just saw the two old men whom Liu Gen had caught, and they were very angry, blaming us for offending the divine immortal officials and causing them to be caught. They wanted to kill us.” After a month, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Taishou and their son both died.
Wang Zhen, the government rafter, had seen Liu Gen several times, and sometimes when he saw Liu Gen happy, he fell on his face and kowtowed to the ground and asked Liu Gen to tell him how he learned the Way and became an immortal. Liu Gen said, “When I went into the mountains to learn the Way, there was no place I didn’t go. Later I entered Huayin Mountain again and met a man riding in a white deer cart with a dozen attendants and four jade maidens on the left and right, holding colorful blazing staffs, all 15 or 16 years old. I quickly bowed down to the divine being and begged him to enlighten me a little. Then the divine being said to me, ‘Have you heard of Hanzhong?’ I said I had heard of it. The deity said, ‘I am Han Jong.’ Then I said to the divine being, ‘I have been a student of the Tao since I was a child, but I have never met a master to guide me. I read a lot of books on the Tao, and also follow the instructions in the book, but all do not work, often secretly wondering if I Liu Gen fate should not get the Tao? Today I was fortunate to meet the great Daxian, this is my lifelong dream, I hope the great Daxian take pity on my sincerity, give me the secret of monasticism it! But that the immortal did not tell me anything, I concentrated on, crying and pleading again and again, the immortal only then passed me the key to become immortal. I then said to the great immortal: ‘Today by your guidance, it is really God’s will! The great immortal said: ‘In order to live forever, we must first get rid of the three corpses of lust, love, and greed that cause evil in the human body. After the three corpses are removed, the will of monasticism can be strengthened and the desires of the human world can be eliminated. The great immortal said and gave me five divine remedies. I followed the great immortal’s teaching to get rid of lust, love, greed, and take the immortal Medicine, so I could become immortal.” Later, Liu Gen taught Wang Zhen the method of luck and adhered to the norms of the three rules and five disciplines. Liu Gen later entered the Jitou Mountain and became immortal and left.
Offending the immortals and the JUEs and persecuting practitioners are great sins that not only harm themselves but also involve their loved ones. An example of this is Zhang Taishou in the article.
(Source: Taiping Guangji)
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