Learning Sword Technique from the Adept Huo Long

“Learning Sword Technique from the Adept Huo Long”

Lü Yan, Complete Tang Poems

《得火龍真人劍法》    呂岩

昔年曾遇火龍君，一劍相傳伴此身。天地山河從結沫，星辰日月任停輪。

須知本性綿多劫，空向人間曆萬春。昨夜鐘離傳一語，六天宮殿欲成塵。

Long ago, meeting the Noble Fire Dragon,

He passed on a sword, my constant companion.

With it, heaven, earth, water and stone evanesce and dissolve;

Sun, moon, stars and planets cease to move.

‘Recognize that essence is stolen continuously. 

Be empty towards the world of men,

And each day will be a springtime.’

But last night, Zhongli passed on this saying

And all the palaces of all the worlds

Fell to dust.

Lü Yan (,呂岩, 798 – ?, commonly known as Lü Dong-Bin吕洞宾, or Ancestor Lü 呂祖) was a Daoist patriarch in the late Tang dynasty. He was variously known as the “sword immortal”, the “drunken immortal” and the “poet immortal”. Indeed, some 200 of his poems are collected in the Complete Tang Poetry (Quan Tang Shi), and this is one of them, describing his legendary sword.

He learned the art of internal alchemy from Zhongli Quan, and according to the Song Shi (a history of the Song dynasty), Lü lived well past 100 years of age, with the complexion of a child and a light agile step. This was long enough for legends about him to spread widely even during his lifetime. He laughed about one story, and said “People say I have a flying sword to kill people. I can only answer by saying that [everyone knows that] those with compassion are Buddhas. But Daoist immortals are like Buddha too; how could we have swords to take human life? I do have a sword, but it is different to the usual: first it cuts off greed, then it cuts off desire, and finally it cuts off all mental disturbance. That is my triple sword-play.”