PureInsight | February 23, 2004
[PureInsight.org] Once upon a time in China, a man went to Jiao Mountain in search of the Dao. He sought the Dao for seven years before he finally met Most Exalted Lord Lao (a Daoist deity). Lord Lao gave him a drill made of wood and told him to drill a hole through a rock five-feet in thickness. Lord Lao said, "You will obtain the Tao as soon as you penetrate a hole through that rock." It took the man forty years to finally drill a hole through the rock. After completing the task, he finally obtained the secret method of making dan using gathered medicinal herbs to produce the pill of immortality. [Dan is a cluster of energy collected from other dimensions in a cultivator's body. ]
The fact that someone was willing to spend seven years in the mountain seeking the Tao should be a convincing enough display of sincerity. But it was still not enough. His teacher still wanted him to drill a rock with a wooden drill. Do you have enough faith in your teacher to believe a wooden drill can penetrate a rock? It was a critical test of whether or not he had unconditional faith in his teacher. He spent forty years drilling the rock. To a non-cultivator, he was wasting 40 years of his life trying to accomplish an impossible task. For a cultivator, it takes immense determination and perseverance to keep doing this! And how much hardship did have to endure! It is indeed true that throughout human history no one has been able to obtain the Dao without undergoing countless, formidable tribulations!
Source: Book about Finding Deities
Translated from http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/2/4/25662.html
