Jiaye The Daoist Caveman

A little talk about a Daoist hermit I have met with numerous times who lives in a cave deep in the Wudang Mountains of China...and about how we can learn from how he lives and cultivates, so far from "normal" society...

Transcript

Jaya,

The Taoist caveman.

The first time I went to the sacred Taoist Wudang Mountains,

I was only there for a few days,

Tacked on to the end of a trip covering other areas of Taoist China.

I fell in love with it right away,

On the bus ride up the mountain.

Private cars are not allowed to drive on this road,

So anyone wishing to go up must take a public bus.

Up and up we went on a very curvy road,

With a steep drop on one side the further up we went.

Many times,

Two buses would converge on the narrow roadway,

One going up and the other going down.

Both buses would slow down and,

Narrowly missing each other,

Sort of slide past each other.

It was a bit nerve-wracking,

But I figured the drivers drove up and down that road all day,

And as far as I could see,

There were no bus skeletons down the side of the cliff as they are in some other parts of China.

On our last day in Wudang,

We went to an area called Happy Valley and saw a wonderful wushu show with a lot of young men and women dancing wildly about the outdoor stage,

Flying through the air with swords and spears flashing,

Just barely missing each other.

There's also a wonderful little tea house that was built as part of a movie set that was filmed there about Jianshan Feng,

The legendary creator of Taiji and all-around Taoist eccentric.

The tea house is out in the middle of a small lake.

There's a wooden walkway out to it,

Which has little spouts under it,

Which shoot out fake mist,

So the tea house and lake always have that misty look that Taoist and Chinese artists and temple tourists love so much.

We hiked a ways back into the valley with our teacher,

A local Qigong instructor,

Dressed in the traditional Taoist outfit with long hair tied into a top knot on the top of his head and held by a wooden pin.

It was magical doing our practice out in the countryside along a small creek.

On the way back,

We ran into an American by the name of Jesse,

Who had lived in that area off and on for years and knows everyone there and speaks very good Chinese.

He and I had been corresponding via email for a while,

So it was nice running into him out there along the trail.

We had written to each other about hooking up when we got there,

But there was a miscommunication and the day we were leaving was the day he thought we were arriving,

And so he felt bad and offered to make up for it by introducing us to a Taoist hermit who had been living in a cave for 20 years up above the Purple Cloud Temple.

Despite being tired from our afternoon hike,

I was excited about meeting such a man and said,

Of course.

Most of my group were tired as well and only two of them decided to join us.

They were a youngish couple,

Robert and Amy,

Who were in great shape after studying martial arts in Japan for many years and were always up for an adventure.

So off we went,

Across fields and up many,

Many steps up to where the hermit's cave was.

Jesse bounded up the steps like a mountain goat while I trudged along behind,

Sweating and panting.

Finally,

We reached the cave,

Which had a small shrine to one of the local guardians of Wudang built into the front of it.

We climbed up the last bit of stairs and suddenly appeared an old man with a deeply wrinkled face and a broad,

Toothless smile.

When he took my hands in greeting,

His hands felt like they were made of wood.

They were so hard and gnarled.

Jesse introduced us and the hermit,

Who goes by the name Jaya,

Old grandfather,

Laughed at everything anyone said.

He had such a warm laugh and a great smile that we all immediately felt at home with him.

Right or wrong,

I've always held the opinion that one of the signs of a spiritual master is how much they laugh.

We went up to the cave and he sat us down in some little stools there.

The stools in many of the chairs in China are so small that I always feel like I'm sitting in a child's chair.

The old man had been making his dinner,

A soup with various vegetables and medicinal herbs in it.

He offered to share it with us,

But Jesse told him we'd already eaten.

So the hermit sat down and ate his soup,

Before which he went into the cave and brought us each a small medallion with a picture of John Sun Fung on it and a few very strange Chinese cookies with some sort of green filling.

After his meal,

Jaya sat on his little seat while Jesse massaged his shoulders.

The old man had told us that he considered Jesse to be a sort of son to him,

And I watched as he relaxed and almost purred under Jesse's hands.

It was really the high point of that particular trip,

Being up there in the beautiful Wudang Mountains,

Which is where John Sun Fung created what we know now as Taiji,

Not to mention the Qigong form that I practice and teach,

Wuji,

Primordial Qigong,

And not to mention visiting with an authentic Taoist cave-dwelling hermit who had such a friendly smile and great open heart.

The fact that there were only a few of us made it even more special.

On subsequent trips,

I brought my whole group along,

Yet Jaya is always so swarm and hospitable to us all.

I always say,

For a guy who lives in a cave,

Jaya is the perfect host.

The other funny thing is that inside a small cabinet where Jaya cooks is a hive of wild bees.

They swarm around his head while he's cooking,

Yet they never sting him.

He calls them his Taoist friends.

I once saw a video online of Jaya where one of the bees went into his ear.

In the video,

You can see him using the stick from some incense to gently probe the bee out,

Again without stinging him.

One of my tour group once asked Jaya what his real name was.

He answered,

Jaya,

In good hermit fashion.

I don't know what brought him up here to his cave,

But he seems happy here.

I did go into his cave a few times and saw that it was not a cabin built into a cave or anything.

It was just a cave with a small,

Curtained-off area where he slept.

I saw no evidence of a stove of any kind.

He once told me that his cave is warmer than the outside of the winter when Wudang is covered with snow.

In his wonderful book on Chinese hermits,

Road to Heaven,

Bill Porter says,

Throughout Chinese history,

There have always been people who prefer to spend their lives in the mountains,

Getting by on less,

Sleeping under thatch,

Wearing old clothes,

Working the higher slopes,

Not talking much,

Writing even less,

Maybe a few poems,

A recipe or two.

Out of touch with the times,

But not with the seasons.

They cultivated roots of the spirit,

Trading flat land dust for mountain mist.

Distant and insignificant,

They were the most respected men and women in the world's oldest society.

The first time I visited Jaya,

He invited us into his cave and onto his meditation platform,

Which was made of stone.

He kindly fished out some bits of cardboard for us to sit on,

One of which was an eight-sided bagua.

I definitely felt some strong energy coming up from the platform.

I once asked Jaya what his personal cultivation practice was,

Expecting some sort of esoteric cave meditation type of thing.

The first thing he said was,

Indeed meditation.

Then he fixed his beautiful smile on us and said,

It's very important to cultivate a loving heart,

I xin.

Good advice indeed.

When someone else from the group asked him when the best time was to meditate,

He answered that he was meditating right now as we were speaking.

To the high-level masters,

There is not a separation between mundane life and spiritual life.

It is one ongoing flow of one moment to the next,

One breath to the next.

A little quote from the Tao Te Ching,

Allow yourself to become empty,

Abide in stillness.

The 10,

000 beings rise and flourish while the sage watches their return.

In Jaya's open smile and ready laugh,

I see generations of Taoist teachers and hermits,

Those people who threw off the dust of the world to go into the mountains to cultivate themselves as pure natural beings.

The ancient character for enlightened being,

Xian,

Is a picture of a person and a mountain.

It was believed in ancient times that the de or spiritual power was strongest in the mountains.

Those who cultivated there were closer in a way to the source of all life,

Which made their practice that much more powerful and long-lasting.

Another quote from a book called The Chinese Garden,

In China,

Great mountains were not just physically impressive,

But thought to be the bony structure of the earth.

Even more potently,

They were also centers of cosmic energy,

The conductors of that magical energy which could be seen flashing around their peaks while the thunder roared and grumbled in the crags.

Jiansheng Feng himself lived in these mountains in the Ming Dynasty almost 800 years ago.

It is said that the emperor heard of this great master who lived high in the mountains and was said to have achieved himself to a very high level.

The emperor was interested in learning from this master or else he just wanted to show him off and so he summoned Jiansheng Feng to his court.

But just like Zhuangzi who wanted to be left alone to drag his turtle tail in the mud,

Jiansheng Feng refused to leave his mountain home and so the emperor sent thousands of workmen to build a great palace temple there for Jiansheng Feng.

It was a huge undertaking and took years to accomplish and once it was done,

Jiansheng Feng disappeared.

Like a typical Dao master,

He was not interested in being exalted by society and preferred the company of wild animals and trees and mountains to the society of the court.

Zhaoya himself is becoming quite well known and has to fend off many more visitors each day as Chinese tourists walk up the new stone stairs the local government has built to his cave.

It's not good for a hermit to become too famous.

I expect that one year I will go there and he will be gone,

Off consorting with wild animals,

Trees,

And master Zansheng Feng.

I don't know if Zhaoya is a true hermit sage as described here by Laozi.

Without going out your door,

You can know everything under heaven.

Without looking out the window,

You can see the Tao of heaven.

The farther one travels,

The less one knows.

The sage knows without traveling,

Sees without looking,

And accomplishes all without striving.

I just know how he smiles at us so warmly whenever I bring people to him and says things like,

We are on a wave you and I,

We are here to cultivate together,

We are all in the hug of nature.

When asked about meditation,

He says,

Calm and collect your mind,

Relax and then release.

When asked about Taoism,

He says,

You must cultivate both the inside and the outside.

Not just meditate,

Do beneficial things for the people.

If you only meditate,

You will never become an immortal.

And meditation can be a kind of qigong.

You must learn to meditate while walking,

Sitting,

Standing,

And even sleeping.

You must learn to empty your heart,

It is the only way it can be filled again.

We don't all need to become hermits in order to cultivate ourselves at a very high level,

Though perhaps we could do with a little more retreat time and space.

Jesus describes the sage as being in the world,

But not of it.

We don't need to spend lots of money going to a retreat center in order to do a retreat.

We can do one right at home.

Just unplug the phone,

Don't invite anyone over,

Stock your pantry with enough provisions for a day or a weekend or a week.

If you have a partner or roommate,

Don't engage in conversation.

Settle yourself down,

Read only books of wisdom,

Don't watch any TV.

Practice yoga,

Tai chi,

Or qigong,

Write in your journal,

Pay attention to your dreams.

Invite your guiding spirits to come.

Meditate by opening your heart and emptying it.

Allow it to be filled with joy,

Wisdom,

And healing.

Take the time to work,

Play,

On,

And with yourself in any issues that may be presenting at the moment.

Take stock of your life and where you are on the great wheel.

Consult the I Ching,

Rest quietly in the Great Tao,

Renew yourself,

Revive yourself,

Rest yourself.

When your retreat is over,

Enter the world again,

Slowly.

Keep one foot in the sacred space you have created around and within you,

Being in the world but not of it.

It is good to know there are people like Jaya and the good folks Bill Porter talks about who remain hermits in a world that is getting busier and busier and faster and faster.

It is good for us to take the time to become a hermit in our heart,

Giving ourselves the space and time to heal,

To be whole,

To delve deeply into the mysterious depths of our own heart-mind as well as the heart-mind of Tao.

As Lao Tzu says,

To know others is wisdom,

But to know oneself is enlightenment.

Those who conquer others require great power,

But to conquer oneself requires inner strength.

Lately,

When I go to Wudang and visit with Jaya,

I sit across from him and he reaches out and takes my hand in his and holds my hand the whole time we're visiting.

May we all find that strength of being so we can live like the ancient masters who loved life and yet traveled to the mountains looking for the state of grace that Lao Tzu describes so well.

Another quote from the Tao Te Ching,

The ancient sages were masters that penetrated this subtle and profound Tao.

They were so deep that we cannot describe them.

They were cautious like someone fording a frozen river.

They were vigilant like someone who was surrounded by enemies.

They were courteous like dignified guests.

They were ephemeral like melting ice.

They were simple like the uncarved block.

They were open and wide like a valley.

They were deep like swirling water.

Who can remain still and quiet while the mud settles?

Who can remain calm and still until it is time to move?

Followers of Tao do not seek excess.

Because they do not seek excess,

They can grow old yet constantly be renewed.

Reviews

I loved this story and your experience from the wise being living simply in a cave. Thank you for sharing! And many blessings♥️🙏🏼

Thank you Solala I love the element of flow and of moving meditation in Taoism and you explain it in an understandable way