My name is Li Erh. On the night I was conceived my mother saw a vision
of me wrapped in the blanket of the sun, moon, and clouds. On the day of my
birth three suns rose at dawn. After I suckled her breast for the first time
nine dragons rained magical water down onto the people.
They all said I was extraordinary but
it wasn’t until I was three I believed them. On a moonless night we had no oil
for our lamps and I felt bad for the fear my family felt from the darkness so I
began to radiate in a golden glow so they could have a peaceful evening. When I
was five I stared at the sun for an hour and never went blind. At seven I went
a year consuming nothing but sunshine.
When I became of age I had little
interest in employment in the courts so I found a job in the imperial library
where I could study the writings of the ancients.
One day a school friend of mine named
Kung Chung-ni came to the library to ask me about an obscure ritual. After I
gave him his answer I told him that he needs to file down his sharpness and put
away his sword of ambition. That great sages do not display their knowledge
they live it.
Years later Chung-ni said in speaking
about me: “Birds soar above the earth; fishes swim to the depths of the ocean;
and tigers run the great expanse of the plains. But who can predict the
behavior of dragons? Sometimes they fly among the clouds and sometimes the
burrow into the earth.” Then he renamed me Lao Tzu the old one, and said that I
was truly a dragon. Chung-ni was later known as Confucius.
When I retired from civil service I
traveled west. I stopped in a border town near Han Ku Pass and dictated my work
to a soldier who recorded it as Tao Te Ching. Afterward I traveled further west
until I came to Mount K’un Lun. I climbed the mountain and found the land of
the immortals and that ended my time in the land of the living.
They all said I was extraordinary but it wasn’t until I was three I believed them. On a moonless night we had no oil for our lamps and I felt bad for the fear my family felt from the darkness so I began to radiate in a golden glow so they could have a peaceful evening. When I was five I stared at the sun for an hour and never went blind. At seven I went a year consuming nothing but sunshine.
When I became of age I had little interest in employment in the courts so I found a job in the imperial library where I could study the writings of the ancients.
One day a school friend of mine named Kung Chung-ni came to the library to ask me about an obscure ritual. After I gave him his answer I told him that he needs to file down his sharpness and put away his sword of ambition. That great sages do not display their knowledge they live it.
Years later Chung-ni said in speaking about me: “Birds soar above the earth; fishes swim to the depths of the ocean; and tigers run the great expanse of the plains. But who can predict the behavior of dragons? Sometimes they fly among the clouds and sometimes the burrow into the earth.” Then he renamed me Lao Tzu the old one, and said that I was truly a dragon. Chung-ni was later known as Confucius.
When I retired from civil service I traveled west. I stopped in a border town near Han Ku Pass and dictated my work to a soldier who recorded it as Tao Te Ching. Afterward I traveled further west until I came to Mount K’un Lun. I climbed the mountain and found the land of the immortals and that ended my time in the land of the living.
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