At night, Mu Xue began her first practice after entering the mountain gate.
The only homework that Su Xingting left in class was for everyone to learn to "observe the mind and stop thinking." In simple terms, it means learning to be quiet.
Entering into a state of tranquility is a required course for almost all schools of spiritual practice.
This matter seems simple, but it is actually not easy.
Since people are born, they inevitably have all kinds of thoughts in their minds, which are called consciousness, also known as delusion. It is not easy to clear the mind and get rid of delusion, especially for such a group of lively children.
Xia Tong meditated for a short while before lying down on the bunk bed in frustration. "What should I do? There is no way I can do what the teacher said. I can't think of anything in my mind."
"What are you thinking about?" Mu Xue, who had just finished washing up and walked into the room carrying a basin of water, asked her.
"I accidentally thought of the delicious roasted quail we had for breakfast today. I wonder if we will have this dish again tomorrow morning." Xia Tong covered her face with her hands. "I know I can't think about it, but the more I tell myself not to think about it, the more I can't help thinking about it. Now my mind is full of greasy quail flying around. Woo woo woo."
Mu Xue laughed and comforted her: "Don't worry, take your time."
"But you see, Yuanzi seems to have succeeded."
Yuanzi is another girl in the house. Because she is round, fair and clean, everyone affectionately calls her Yuanzi.
At this moment, the chubby Yuanzi was sitting cross-legged on the couch, his hands in a seal, his eyes closed, his expression peaceful, and he had no reaction to the noise around him. He seemed to have entered a state of meditation.
"Wow, Yuanzi is amazing."
"Yuanzi succeeded."
The children in the room exclaimed softly and looked around quietly.
I saw the girl sitting cross-legged on the bunk bed with a chubby white face, breathing slowly, her chest rising and falling slightly, and slowly she began to snore clearly - it turned out that she had fallen asleep.
"Hahaha."
Everyone laughed and woke up the confused Yuanzi.
The so-called tranquility means that you cannot deliberately think about distracting thoughts, but you cannot completely empty your mind either, otherwise you will quickly fall asleep like Yuanzi, instead of practicing consciously.
Mu Xue sat cross-legged on the bunk bed, her hands loosely folded, her thumbs touching each other, her eyelashes drooping, and she felt relaxed.
I began to silently recite the formula taught by Su Xingting.
"The most wonderful thing is to remember first and then forget."1
Slowly, she entered a very mysterious state. She could clearly see someone walking back and forth in front of her eyes, but she seemed to ignore them. She could clearly hear someone talking in the house, but she seemed to hear nothing at all.
The mind is clear and at ease, like a small boat in the sea. When it thinks, the boat rises, and when it thinks, the boat falls. No matter how the tides rise and fall, the boat is at ease.
After staying in this state for a long time, the breathing gradually becomes long and rhythmic, and the spiritual energy between heaven and earth begins to gather into the body.
Mu Xue opened her eyes. She couldn't practice anymore.
Su Xingting only taught them how to enter the state of concentration, but he had not yet taught them the mantras for the exercises after entering the state of concentration.
For Mu Xue, it was not difficult to enter a state of tranquility, but what was difficult was that she entered a state of tranquility too quickly. Some habits from years of practice had been engraved in her bones, and when she relaxed her mind, she naturally began to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the tranquility.
The practice of Guiyuan Sect is to refine essence into qi in stillness, that is, to refine the acquired essence into primordial qi, thereby consolidating the foundation, strengthening the body, and achieving the goal of cultivating both sex and life.
This is very different from the practice of magic cultivators. For example, she herself entered the Dao through magic, and in the process of extremely focusing on making magic tools, she drew the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to refine tools and objects. Later, she gradually got used to directly extracting spiritual energy and refining it to purity, and feeding it back to herself. It can be said that this is almost a completely opposite process to the alchemy of Guiyuan Sect.
In addition to Mu Xue, some children seemed to have found the trick and sat upright in a state of meditation.
After all, they are children selected from thousands of people by Jin Wendao, and most of them have excellent qualifications and are different from ordinary people.
Of course, there were also children who could not sit still and had already stood up and walked around. Some even simply lay down on the bunk bed and fell asleep.
Su Xingting gave everyone ample time to practice a basic state of tranquility and also told them not to force themselves.
So the kids here don't have much real sense of urgency at all.
The laughter of people playing in the courtyard came in through the paper windows.
Xia Tong was grimacing as she stretched her legs, crying out, "Ouch, my legs are numb." Yuanzi was tilting her body, playing cat's tangle with a little girl next door.
Those smiling little faces are carefree, innocent and simple.
Mu Xue's mind slowly recalled faces of people of similar age to these children.
Those young faces were full of tension, anxiety and vigilance. Their eyes were full of ferocity. They were a group of wolf cubs, wolves that were about to starve to death.
How many children were there in the group that was bought back with me? Was it thirty or forty
The first lesson that the master taught at that time was to infuse all the children with spiritual energy and open up the Governor Vessel. Not every child could bear the spiritual energy, and on the first day, several people exploded and died on the spot.
At that time, little Mu Xue was standing among the fallen corpses, shivering.
She didn't dare to look back to see how many people had died. She just focused all her efforts and practiced madly.
All the children are trying their best to escape the terror of being overtaken by death at any time.
Through such crazy and focused practice, Mu Xue finally realized the truth and became a weapon refiner.
When she looked back, there were only a few people left behind her. Most of the forty children of similar age who were struggling to survive were gone.
At night, Mu Xue had recurring nightmares.
In the dream, the pale-faced children crowded around her, as if they were still studying together in that cruel school, unable to escape from that dark school forever.
Mu Xue ran desperately in the darkness. Figures fell one after another around her. She didn't dare to stop, and she didn't have the ability to pull anyone up.
Honglian grabbed her and ran together, "Don't look back, keep moving forward. Live, as long as you can live."
"The netherworld is bright, like the moon over the river, it will dispel your worries, protect your mind, keep away evil fires, and prevent demons from invading. Observe your mind and you will find the truth, and your spirit will be clear and peaceful."
A clear voice rang in Mu Xue's ears, like the sound of a pleasant bell, which spread through her heart with a ding and blew away the nightmares that clouded her mind.
Mu Xue woke up.
This is someone using the Taoist method of secret sound transmission to wake her up and prevent her from being bewitched by her inner demons.
Mu Xue got up and opened the window a little, and the bright moonlight immediately leaked into the room through the gap in the window.
Sitting on the roof opposite the courtyard was a young fellow apprentice.
Mu Xue had seen this man before. On the night she first arrived at Huayu Hall, she was touched by the spiritual energy and her consciousness went out, but she was scared back by the man guarding the yard.
This time, the man just looked at her impatiently and motioned for her to go back to the house and sleep.
It turned out that this was a special arrangement by the sect, letting these senior brothers with profound Taoism skills stand guard at night to protect these newcomers who had just started practicing and were prone to making mistakes.
Mu Xue lay back on the bed, resting her head on her arms and closing her eyes.
I gradually felt at peace.
The dark night shines brightly like the moon over a river, dispelling your worries and protecting your mind.
Eliminate your worries and protect your mind.
It turns out that this is what a true master-disciple relationship should be like.
Fu Yun, who had been squatting on the roof for several nights, felt a little depressed.
When new disciples join the sect, it is customary to send outstanding disciples to take turns to keep watch in Huayu Hall.
It was his turn on the first day. That night, he clearly sensed a powerful and unfamiliar spiritual awareness flashing in the darkness.
Therefore, he was worried and applied to be on duty for several days in a row.
But he did not find any of the strange, powerful enemies with bad intentions that he had imagined. Instead, every night there were little kids who woke up crying, wet the bed, and clamored to go home to find their parents, which made him very anxious.
Just now, there was a little girl who practiced too fast and had a nightmare. He had to use the secret transmission method to wake her up. Fortunately, this little girl didn't cry and ask him to comfort her.
Thinking of the pale little face that just peeked out from the window gap, Fu Yun, who already had dark circles under his eyes, sighed and decided to change someone tomorrow night and never do this kind of thing of taking care of a baby again.
The morning fog has just awakened, and the morning sun is about to rise.
The Jiulian Mountains in the early morning appear in shades of green.
Halfway up the mountain, the sound of bells could be heard from Chongxu Temple.
The mountains that are always covered by white fog can vaguely reveal the golden glow of the jade buildings and palaces of the immortals, which arouses people's reverie and yearning.
On a square paved with blue bricks, Ye Hangzhou practiced boxing with a group of tough young disciples.
What was taught was a set of Nine Palaces Grappling Hands, which had a total of 9981 moves. The moves were vigorous and continuous. After finishing a set of punches, the vital energy flowed throughout the body, and I sweated slightly, feeling very refreshed.
Compared to meditation, this kind of boxing is more popular among these young and active disciples.
Not every young child can easily enter a state of tranquility through sitting.
Some children just can't sit still, and it's very difficult to force them to calm down during meditation. But that doesn't mean these children are not suitable for practice.
Therefore, Su Xingting specially arranged for his disciple Ye Hangzhou, who was quite talented in martial arts, to be responsible for teaching these lively and active children a set of boxing techniques.
Teach students in accordance with their aptitude, guide them to move from movement to tranquility, and achieve the same effect through different paths.
The only thing that made Ye Hangzhou a little regretful was that the people who were willing to learn boxing from him were all boys, and there was not a single girl. Girls were physically weaker, and they should learn some martial arts to strengthen their bodies when they were young, more than boys.
Maybe the name of the set of exercises I chose is too ugly. Ye Hangzhou thought with some disappointment, if I had chosen some orchid twisting leaf hand, star picking and moon closing fist, my junior sisters might like it more.
"Senior Brother Ye, what are you doing here?" a crisp voice sounded.
Ye Hangzhou looked back and saw a familiar little face appearing from the gap between the stone railings.
"It's Xiaoxue, I'm here to teach you how to fight." Ye Hangzhou saw Mu Xue, walked over, and tried to get close to this little sister that the master had chosen.
"Why do we need to learn worldly martial arts? Is it because of what the gentlemen said about achieving tranquility through movement?" Mu Xue asked.
"Oh, you also know how to create peace in movement. Not bad, not bad."
Mu Xue smiled and said, "But I don't quite understand. It is much easier to seek the truth in silence. Why do you have to use such a tortuous and troublesome method?"
Ye Hangzhou rubbed the two buns of his junior sister's hair and gave her a small lesson.
"We Taoists are different from Buddhists and demons. They want to abandon their physical bodies and transcend their souls to the heavens. But we emphasize the dual cultivation of body and soul, cherishing our blessings and nurturing our bodies, and attaching great importance to the cauldron of the physical body."
"Practicing physical skills and boxing since childhood not only allows you to enter tranquility through movement, but also can temper your physical body, which will be of great benefit to your future practice. Apart from other things, none of our disciples at Xiaoyao Peak are bad at physical skills. Even those people at Tiezhu Peak are no match for me."
He squatted down in front of Mu Xue, and said with a little expectation, "Junior sister, do you want to learn boxing from me?"
The junior sister looks quiet and gentle, and she probably doesn’t like this way of practicing.
But unexpectedly, Mu Xue thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
Looking back, listening to the opposite, and regulating breathing were as simple as eating and drinking for Mu Xue, but observing the mind and stopping thoughts were difficult for her. Because she had to deliberately abandon the various practice habits and mental qualities she had developed over decades, her inner demons were frequent and she found it difficult to maintain her calmness.
She thought hard for a long time, and finally came up with a solution when she saw Ye Hangzhou teaching boxing.
Use movement to stop thoughts, and enter stillness from movement.
From then on, a short figure appeared at the end of the group of boxers in the square, waving his hands and feet with difficulty, imitating and learning seriously.